Monday March 31, 2008
I didn’t go to school today for the first time in years, and I mean years. When I got up to shower I barely had the energy or the breath to make it back to my room. Therefore, I decided to say home and try and go to the doctor. Sure, it sounds like a fairly simple task…but I’m in Spain. After telling our host mom and sister about the situation I finally had someone from Centro Mundo Lengua, the program that I am in, come to take me to the doctor. There is one large difference between the healthcare systems of Spain and the United States. All of the public healthcare here is free, whereas the private is not. Thank God I had Paula with me because she got me where I needed to be and made sure that I got what I needed. She was a lifesaver, cherry flavored, because those are the best. After checking in at the front counter we were sent to door number 2. After walking down a long hallway we finally found doors that were sequentially numbered 1-10. I felt like I was on an awkward game show and I was the next contestant to see what the prize behind door number two would be. After waiting and chatting with Paula for a while, I finally got called into door number two. I entered the room to the soothing sounds of classical music and much to my surprise the words “doctors office” were taken literally here. We sat down at a desk with a doctor, we talked about my symptoms, he listened to my lungs and then wrote me a prescription. I’m not sure that I was up-to-date with all of the medical terminology, but I got through it all and we left to head to the pharmacy. I got my prescribed drugs, stopped at the herbal medicine shop to get eucalyptus, and then headed home. Paula was amazing, she knew exactly where to go and she had a smile on the whole way. Afterwards I took all of my new Spanish medications and I’ve been in bed since. Hopefully I’ll get over the plague here soon so I can start feeling like a normal person again!
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