Mexico Notebook: Here, they make house calls

XALAPA, Mexico -- Three days away from finishing language school in southern Mexico, our daughter came down with severe stomach pain, just as she had been marveling about how lucky she had been to avoid illness for six weeks immersed in her host culture.

 

She was on her third day of antibiotics and pain pills when we arrived to pick her up at the end of the term. We celebrated with the rest of her classmates with a delicious [albeit noisy] dinner hosted by the school. The next day her pain was excruciatingly worse.

 

Unsure of what else to do, I called the doctor she had seen three days earlier and explained the situation. I was sure I understood his reply, even though my Spanish is not the best. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was asking for directions to our hotel.

 

Sure enough, about an hour later, a well-dressed man with a black bag came to our hotel room and examined our daughter. His infectious, upbeat bedside manner had her smiling before he left, but her condition was serious enough that he recommended a blood test to check for appendicitis.

 

A blood test? How would we do that?

 

It, too, would come to our hotel.

 

In about an hour and a half, a friendly man in a white coat embroidered with the name of a laboratory came to our room, carrying a bag slightly larger than that of the doctor. He drew two vials of blood and promised results by that evening.

 

Incredibly to me, in less time than it would have taken me to make arrangements and drive to a clinic in Albuquerque, we had the test done. He charged us $20 for the blood test and also collected $70 for the doctor, who had declined to take any payment earlier, as he thought he would be reimbursed by the university as he had been for our daughter's first visit.

 

However, school was over and he couldn't collect. We gladly paid.

 

Unfortunately, before midafternoon and before we had any test results, our daughter got worse. And I called the doctor. This time he asked if we could come to his office, and our daughter indicated she was too sick to move. He heard and offered to return to the hotel.

 

The pain was so great the doctor decided to administer a remedy by syringe, but when our daughter balked at the size of the needle, he sent my husband to buy a smaller one at a pharmacy about a block up the street.

 

After administering the shot, he spent a bit more time with us, making sure our daughter was comfortable. For this visit, during which, like the first, he spent more than a half an hour with us, he charged another $70, which included the pain-killing shot and a couple of other remedies for inflammation and sleeplessness. [She had not slept a whole night for three days.] Also before he left, we had the blood test results: no appendicitis.

 

The diagnosis was gastritis caused by something she had eaten.

 

The next day she followed the doctor's instructions to rest and totally abstain from food other than crackers and broth.

 

A day later she was well enough to go with us to the doctor's office for a final visit and consultation [no charge] and to walk around her adopted city with us so she could show it off.

 

 

print Share