Part III: And then I went to the hospital

After that wonderful shower, my headache really kicked in. Over the next couple of hours, I became more and more ill. I´m talking joint pain, fevers, body ache, chills and an unimaginable headache. So, as everyone else was enjoying their night of debauchery....I was dying in bed. Through I will say it was a very nice, soft bed. Finally, at about 11:45pm, I called the nurse on call. She instructed me that I should head over to the hospital. YEY! Angie and Erin accompanied me there. Along the way we got to see the ´night life´here. Nobody really stays out late here, not as safe to do so. Except that prostitute we saw, well....i think she was a prostitute. She was wearing tall heels and a bikini on a street corner, but maybe I shouldn't be so judge mental. The hospital wasn´t as sketchy as I thought it would be, nor was it to busy. My companions stayed with me until the doctor said I would have to spend the night. Surprisingly, the taxi waited for this information as well. This way, my amigas used the same, safe taxi. I guess he didn´t have that many other fairs going. So they headed back to the hotel while I got checked into the hospital. This was probably the most traumatic part of the whole experience. First of all...try never to get an IV while in El Salvador. It was extremely painful. I kept flinching and she kept saying she was done, but was she...no. She just kept going. I would have killed for one of those Red Cross volunteers. Next was them drawing blood. I swear it was one of those cartoon sized needles. She just stuck it in my other arm and drew out some blood. After all this trauma (and a little more since they had to weigh me), I finally was brought to my own room. I can´t say I slept to well, but at least it was cool and comfortable.

The next day was alright. It started off with the doctor telling me that I had a urinary tract infection. I was kinda hoping that it was something cooler then that, but apparently not. He also wanted to run some more tests and to stay in the hospital till Monday. I will not go into the size of the specimen cups, but lets just say they were less then adequate. I then spent the morning watching TV (they had english channels...the food network, HDTV and news). I also surfed for some shows that had subtitles, and weren´t daubed. I also tried to call home, but apparently the operator didn´t know how to place a call to the US. As you could imagine, this became very frustrating very quickly. Nobody at home knew I was ill, and I was alone in a scary hospital. Thankfully, Bryan (the guy in charge of us munis) came and visited me. He´s awesome! He brought me some poweraide, brought my bag and let me call home on his cell phone. He also just chilled and chatted for a while. Talking to my parents was such a relief.....though I think i charged my mom up a bit. Apparently she left some fun voice-mail´s for siblings who didn´t pick up their phones. She´s even going to send me a package! After them, my siblings/grandma/aunt called. After each one I felt a little better and regained some sense of humor. Some accused me of becoming ill for attention...........
Otherwise, I slept better and felt better that night.

Monday morning I was freed. They brought me to the office (where I wrote part I of this series) and gave me a certificate for the hostel. Apparently a lot of volunteers were sick, b/c that place was packed. I basically spent Monday watching movies and talking with volunteers. I also learned where the different food spots were. I miss flavorful food. I learned of scary bugs I hope never to encounter. Did you know there are tarantulas in El Salvador!! Anyway, after flipping my mattress, I slept well. (I had to flip it b/c a metal spring was poking through the other side.)

On Tuesday, I made it back to my host community...finally. The only fun part of the day was when Irma (the nurse) kept calling the hostel to see if I was there....the owner thought I had left and told her no. Apparently, this set her for quite a loop. She was calling everywhere! It was only when the owner came out and asked the girl next to me if Barbara was here was the truth discovered. Thus ended my exciting week!

It is due to this experience that I will be buying a cell phone muy pronto. I´ll make sure to send the number out to a lucky few. :oP