Paging Dr. Ben Casey.....

Sucre apt check

                                                   

We have had a very busy two weeks since we last blogged. We have checked almost half of the missionary apartments in the mission, and we are getting 30 new missionaries this week. 13 are Hermanas. We are losing only 12, so that means 10 new areas and apartments to get fitted with everything they need, so we will continue to stay busy! At least we know our way around La Cancha! Jack is teaching priesthood and Dario was ordained an Elder last week. He and Susana are being sealed in the Temple this Friday.




Betanzos apt check

Christy (Hermana Dyer) has been working on getting electronic keyboards into a lot of the areas that don’t have them and finding teachers to teach youth and adults how to play using a teaching packet created by the Church. She had 10 keyboards ordered from SLC, but they were turned back at customs, because apparently Bolivia isn’t letting anything in from the US these days. So we have been trying to locate and buy as many keyboards here in Cochabamba that fall in the price range.  As with everything else, we have to go to 8 different stores and negotiate with 16 different people. We finally bought 5 today. This will also be an ongoing project, but at least we know where to go next trip.     

We traveled to Sucre and Potosi again with Pres and Hermana Dyer, and were able to get all of the apartments there checked. Before we tell you a little about our trip, we need to get you caught up on what happened the week before we left.  To start out I am going to post 2 pictures that all of our faithful readers will understand. The rest of you are going to have to go back and read past posts to figure out their significance.

 

 

1.       This Tacoma pick-up is not ours. It happened to be in front of us a few days ago. Apparently it was not his week for tail lights.

 

 

 2.       Wires. This is even nastier than the first one I posted.

 

The “Clinic”

So in order to get your carnet (visa) to stay in the country longer than 30 days, you have to, as part of the process, get a medical exam. It is just another way for them to create jobs and increase revenue. The first clue of what we were in for is the urine sample. We received specimen jars the day before then we collected our own urine at home and took it to the clinic the day of the exam. Why hasn’t the US thought of this when they UA everyone? It would really streamline the process and speed things up. What could possibly go wrong? There was also nowhere to label the specimens, so we just put the jars in a plastic bag and hoped for the best. It turns out; the “clinic” looks like it is from the 1940's and is in a police station. Everyone is in military uniforms except the nurses, who still wear the white nurse caps. I thought at any moment, Ben Casey would burst through the doors. ….a very dirty Ben Casey. If you are too young to know who Ben Casey is, Google it.  It was hard to take pictures when no one was looking, but here are a couple

 This is a little fuzzy, but in this one small office they cover psychology, dermatology, and gastroenterology, because I am sure they are all so closely related.

 I guess they figured since  urologia and neurologia  rhymed, they should go together.

While we were waiting we met a young female college  student from San Luis Obispo CA who is working here for an NGO helping find Bolivian students to do exchanges with US students.  After the initial interview with the first officer, you had to go downstairs.  First stop is height, weight and blood pressure. They had several pairs of doctor’s office balance scales, but no, you had to use the cheap bathroom scales and you could NOT take your shoes off.  I know I haven’t gained 15 lbs since I’ve been here, but that was OK, because you could NOT take your shoes off when measuring your height. Luckily I had on about 2 ½ inch heels, so I’m sure it will help average out. Next stop blood test. This place was freezing cold and my veins roll anyway. This nurse really tried to find a vein, she worked really, really hard. Never mind that my arm was resting on this dirty rag, I did watch her take the needle out of a sterile package.  Since she had not extracted one drop of blood, I suggested that she might try the top of my hand, since I have pretty prominent veins there. She pulled the needle out of my arm and set it on the table with the needle touching the table and before I could say anything, she picked it up and stuck it in the top of my hand. She got hardly anything with this attempt, but I figured she was tired of dealing with my veins and said “Bien” and motioned me out.  I figure, we all have to die of something.  Next was X-ray.  The guy was reading a comic book or something and showed me the changing room. He motioned for me to take everything from the waist up off. When I asked about jewelry, he said no. Here is a picture of the changing room/bathroom/x-ray developing room:

 So I put on a very well used robe went out and held the x-ray board.  The tech never asked me to hold my breath or anything and I never heard a click or the usual sounds. $300 Bolivianos for that one.  Then we had to go back upstairs again to wait.  While we were waiting, we compared notes with California girl on the process so far. The scales also had her 15 lbs overweight, so I felt a lot better.  As far as the X-rays, Jack didn’t have to take any of his clothes off, not even his coat. I had to take off only my shirt, but California girl had to take everything off, including her jewelry! We know where we stand in the eyes of the X-ray technician! We all got a good laugh out of that. Jack told the girl that it was better than when he did it 38 years ago.  The two sister missionaries before him were told to go into a room together totally strip and do 10 jumping jacks in front of the male Dr.

Next we had the actual physical. Jack went with me to translate and they asked odd questions I could have easily answered with lies and they would have never known, but I didn’t and she listened to my heart and chest and called it good. The next and last stop was the dental exam. The dentist was very nice, but the dental mirror she used was not. It was very large and she clearly did not have the time to sterilize it between exams. She made notations of each space between teeth and measured over/under bite. Jack said he felt like he was about to be sold into slavery. We had to assure her that we saw our dentist every six months and we were in no pain (just mental from the thought of all of the germs we had been exposed to)  Before we left I took a picture of one of the rooms for overnight stays I imagine and a picture of their downstairs sink.
 

 

 

On our way out they gave us an appointment slip to come back two days later. When we went back we had our full report along with x-rays (the ribs looked very fuzzy). In my report there was a prescription for Cipro. Apparently they had detected an infection (anthrax?)  Funny, because I felt fine. When we asked the officer where they found the infection, she said she didn’t know. So, lung, blood, urine or dental I have no idea.  A few days later I did start to feel sick and ended up getting a different antibiotic (my choice as you don’t need a prescription for anything here) and I’m happy to say, I am feeling much better from whatever was ailing me. Maybe they figured I would end up getting sick after their testing procedure and the prescription was just a pre-emptive strike on their part.