A Taste of Their Own Medicine

I'm just now realizing I could have died were it not for modern medicine. Hopefully none of you will ever have to experience a bacterial infection in the digestive system. People on the Oregon Trail had to deal with stuff like that. It was called dysentery.

About a little over a week ago Nich and I went out to eat at a local restaurant called El Quincho. He really wanted to eat a steak so I said I'd split it with him if he wanted. We agreed but I told him I liked steak well done, and was also willing to try out some random vocabulary I had run across in a tourist book. When you want a steak to be well-cooked, you say "bien hecho". I was bent on telling the waiter that I wanted my steak to be well-prepared this time (this was our third visit to the restaurant). The last time I was there I had ordered a steak and it was a little on the rare side.

It turns out I forgot to tell the waiter how I wanted my steak. Seeing how I was fine last time, I thought I'd be fine again. Soon, the steak was sitting right in front of me. I picked up my knife and cut it right down the middle. I can specifically remember thinking about which half to give to Nich. I remember thinking how both halves looked the same. I ended up giving Nich the half that was closer to him. If there was ever a moment where time should have stood still, it was definitely that moment! As we were eating he started to complain, "Dude, I got way more fat than you did."

"At least your half isn't as rare," I replied.

"Yeah but I don't like fat."

"And I don't like bloody meat."

To make a long story shorter he picked around the fat and I picked around the red meat. After we finished, we paid and went back to the dorm.

Later that night I started to get a stomach ache. Thinking it was a complication of the sore throat I had had earlier on in the week, I went to bed thinking I could sleep it off. With my immune system already being down from that I didn't want to get any more sick. When I woke up on Friday morning though, I was a lot more sick. I won't go into details but I couldn't stay away from the bathroom for more than 30 minutes.

When the pain got to be more than a nuisance I decided it was time to go to the emergency room. I quickly became familiar with intravenous therapy. After a couple of hours they would give me something to relieve the pain and I would start to feel better. I'd go back to the dorm, but after a few hours the pain would come back. I repeated this process three more times.

I'm sure there are many annoying things in this world, but surely one of the most annoying must be trying to communicate to someone who doesn't understand English that you're dying. After I learned the Spanish word for blood they definitely took the fourth visit more seriously.

It was Sunday morning and they finally told me I was going to be admitted to the hospital. Those words were music to my ears! By then I was incredibly week and dehydrated. The doctors immediately started running every test imaginable. I even had an ultrasound. After all the tests they took me up to one of the rooms where an old man was already staying. I thought he was dead at first. Fast-forward past the applesauce and crackers and a whole lot of sleeping and I was out by Wednesday afternoon. The only things I can remember were sleeping and how nasty the food was. (For breakfast, Argentinians will sometimes eat cheese combined with a runny jam. It's beyond gross). The hospital however had amazing care. All of my nurses were student nurses that went to the same school as I did. They were really helpful and kind. The only awkward part is I think some of them saw me naked. I couldn't have cared less at the time, but now that I've bumped into a few of them around the school I kind of would like to know...

It turns out that the doctors were never able to find out what I had. They said it could have been anything from the food to the water to the bathrooms. All they could really give me was that it was some kind of dysentery.

PS. I'm a vegetarian now.