Wednesday, late afternoon, I got hungry and ate some rice and sauce. I thought it tasted like it was about to start going bad, but nothing to worry about. Apparently, I was quite wrong. Just before going to bed, my stomach felt a bit weird, but I ignored it. I woke up a few times during the night because of it. Finally, at 4 am, I got up and was on the toilet for an hour and a half. To spare all the gory details, basically I was sick all through the night and didn't sleep well at all. In the morning, Ben told me I should go to the hospital, but I refused. I'm quite used to having stomach problems here, and even though my stomach hurt really badly, I kept just hoping it would go away. Finally, at about 4 in the afternoon, Ben found me crying because my stomach hurt SO badly--it's never hurt like that before. He insisted again that I go to the hospital and I relented. I called Prof. Ako first, since he is Dickinson's program director and I thought maybe he could help me out at least in finding an English speaking doctor. Wrong. He was no help at all. So I headed to the nearest "good" hospital.

We arrive at the emergency section, and a little red car pulls in behind us. A guy about my age gets out of the backseat, his abdomen covered in blood, holding all kinds of clothes there to stop the bleeding. Not helpful when I was already feeling terribly nauseous. As they escorted him into what I guess was the surgery area, for the first and last time I saw someone use gloves there. I went into the other section and they showed me to a curtained area with a bed. Ben ran off to pay the consultation fee and buy a thermometer--if you don't have the money, too bad, so sad. I sat on the bed and burst into tears--I REALLY did not want to be there. The nurse came in and asked all kinds of questions, took my temperature (almost 101 degree fever), blood pressure, all that good stuff. Next comes the doctor, who listened to my stomach and then recommended I stay in the hospital overnight. Not only did I not want to spend the money, I also DID NOT want to spend the night in a hospital room with three other people. He then told me I needed an IV because I had lost ridiculous amounts of fluid, so off went Ben again to buy a syringe and I went to the bathroom because they wanted a stool sample. When I returned, they were ready to stick me, not using gloves, of course. After the man was done with the needle, he handed it to Ben to go throw away!! I was shocked; Ben didn't think anything of it. After a bit, I ended up falling asleep and Ben ran home to get a few things. By the time he came back an hour later, the IV was almost done (they said it would take two hours). Good thing Ben brought a flashlight with him--I had to go to the bathroom again and they didn't have a light in there. The doctor never came back in to check on me; they just took out the IV and said I could go, giving me a list of tests I needed and medicines to take. He never even asked about my health history or what medicines I already take to check for drug interactions. I went to the pharmacy and then to the bakery since I hadn't eaten all day. I was in there for about 5 seconds before all the food made me want to puke, so I told Ben what I wanted and ran out. When I got home, I tried to choke down some bread and failed miserably, but at least I got a good night's sleep (I knew there was no reason to stay there overnight).

I got my test results back on Friday and went back to ask the doctor if I needed any other meds. It was chaos. There was no one controlling the flow of people going in to see the doctor--you had to just push your way in. After waiting a bit, Ben and I decided it was ridiculous and went to see a Haitian doctor friend. She read my results and prescribed another med, and then looked over what I had already been prescribed. She was shocked--the doctor wanted me to take the meds three times a day--none of them needed to be taken more than twice. Special.

The ending of the story is a happy one--my appetite is starting to return and I'm feeling a bit better. It's a good thing too, because tonight we're having a little get together for Ben's birthday! I'm happy for him--it's the first time in 27 years that he's been able to have any kind of celebration, and seeing as how I stressed him out so much because I was sick, it'll be nice for him to relax a bit. Actually, I've got to go help make dinner!