Hello, my name is Jorge and I will be your driver today
On Sunday afternoon we went into town to find a doctor. After all the parents took turns looking over him with well-intentioned but completely unknowing eyes, we decided to take Truman in to get looked at by an actual doctor. That morning he had developed very distinct red dots on his upper thighs and face. When we saw the first one we thought perhaps they were mosquito or spider bites, but when they became more and more numerous, we began to get worried. After he woke up from his afternoon nap, he had rashes in addition to the dots.
All sorts of possible illnesses started popping into our minds, beginning with chicken pox. I have terrible memories of itchy, painful pox all over my body when I was small and I was really hoping that Truman would not be patient #0 for chicken pox in a house of nine children under ten years old. Truman, like Henry and Addi, had been vaccinated for chicken pox, but we weren't sure how reliable those things were. Plus, there had been a case of chicken pox at ICS (the kids' school) earlier in the week. And, if I'm being completely honest, having one or more of my children coming down with chicken pox was going to seriously increase the amount of parental work I was going to have to do on my vacation. More responsibility on vacation es no bueno.
Much of the parental diagnosis was taking place on the patio by the pool. Since we aren't medical professionals, there is no stigma with diagnosing children's illnesses while drinking wine. Estamos en España, after all. Depending on which mobile network provider we each use, we either got no service at the vacation house, or extremely little service with almost no data. I am one of the lucky/unlucky (depending on your point of view) ones without any service at all. We are so used to being able to look up any fact in an instant that when we cannot we feel a little lost. In this particular case, we needed the location and opening hours of all the hospitals and clinics nearby. Try asking Siri that when there is no internet connection; that lady becomes completely worthless. We also wanted to see pictures of chicken pox eruptions and meningitis spots so we could compare them with the marks on Truman.
Meningitis?
Yep, one of the parents mentioned meningitis and that immediately changed the urgency of the exercise from 'theoretical' to 'concerning'. Apparently in the UK they teach parents to check for meningitis by pressing a cold glass on the eruption and if the red color doesn't leave the skin, then it could be meningitis so rush to a hospital as soon as possible.
We weren't in the UK, but instead in an old rental house in a valley in southern Spain. Instead of a cold glass, we found a room temperature plastic cup. Not optimal conditions for a diagnosis but we tried anyway. After taking turns pressing the cup repeatedly against Truman's spots, we realized that the results to our hi-tech operation were inconclusive and we couldn't trust them either way.
Since the glass parlor trick failed us, we went back to our non existent data coverage. After several failed attempts to use the internet to find a doctor, we found a listing in a local tourism book for a hospital in the neighboring town of Iznájar. Since neither Jess nor I are proficient in Spanish, we took our friend Pascal with us to be our pseudo translator. Pascal is the same guy we took with us to write the contract when we bought Jess's Fiat. He's super handy. :)
The road from our valley into Iznájar takes you around the cliffs that surround Iznájar's signature feature, a large beautiful lake that was created by damning up a nearby river. The lake is absolutely gorgeous and there is no boat or people activity on it. The entire scene creates a very pretty vista as you drive into town.
The lake and bridge going into Iznájar.
Once we made it into Iznájar proper, we had to navigate the windy small town streets to find the hospital. Even though it was 4:00pm in the afternoon the streets were mostly deserted. After driving to the center of the city we began looking for a place to park. As is common (in my experience) every bit of on-street parking was occupied, so we drove until we found the familiar "P" sign indicating a parking lot. The parking sign had us drive down a steep one-way alley. I am so glad we switched out our large 7 seater van for a smaller minivan. The larger van would not have fit in the alley. Even with the smaller car I only had a 2-3 inches from my side mirrors to the alley walls. The entire time I was driving I was thinking What happens if this street is a dead-end? Driving down a tight alley is one thing, but reversing a quarter mile with no clearance would likely be impossible!
Trying not to scrape the side mirrors off the rental car.
After we managed to park, we hiked back uphill (Truman refused to walk to Jess had to carry him up the hill) we found the hospital down a small side street. We knew it was the hospital because the entire street was filled with a large ambulance parked awkwardly out front. The door to the hospital was locked so we had to ring the bell. A woman came to the door and showed us to the deserted waiting room.
Where are all the patients? We are the only people in the hospital.
After a few moments, Jorge came out and we followed him into the examination room. He examined Truman and Pascal did all the translating for us. Jorge was cool as a cucumber throughout the entire examination, and gently nodded after each of Pascal's answers. Finally, he concluded that it wasn't life-threatening meningitis but insect bites, most likely fleas. It turns out that during the morning, Truman had been petting the mangy farm cats that live near the rental house.
Jorge wrote us a prescription for a few different medicines (some sort of steroid cream and a Tylenol equivalent, I think) and then came the moment I was dreading. He asked for our national health cards. Umm, yeah. We don't have those. Due to the fact that dealing with the government bureaucracy is a time and energy suck, we had been putting off registering with the local town hall and medical service which means, you guessed it, we did not have the medical cards to receive medical care. I had assumed that our best option was to try haggle and pay outright, and then find some way to get reimbursed for the doctor visit later.
After Pascal explained the situation to Jorge, he seemed completely uninterested in the details. He explained to Pascal that he's actually the ambulance driver and normally there is a lady that does the administration work.
The ambulance driver.
Oh well, estamos en España.
We asked where the pharmacy was located. He gave us approximate directions and sent us on our way. And yes, the woman locked the hospital door behind us.
The pharmacy was locked and the noise from the street party made using the intercom impossible.
We make it to the pharmacy and it's locked up tight. There is a sign that says if it's locked, ring the intercom. So we did. Or rather, Pascal did. Did I mention that there was some sort of afternoon street party going on? See those people sitting in the red Coca-Cola chairs behind Jess? They are sitting in the road drinking and eating tapas. Everyone was so loud that it wasn't really possible for Pascal to make himself understood on the intercom. The entire thing was absurdly comical.
A few minutes later, a young man shows up, unlocks the gate and allows us into the pharmacy. We give him our prescription and asks for our national health cards. Hmmm. Pascal launches into the same explanation that he gave Jorge and, equally unperturbed, the young man simply shrugs and rings up the medicine (it cost 17 euros by the way).
For all we know the young man was the local bartender who lost rock-paper-scissor when the foreigners wanted to go to the pharmacy. We didn't even want to ask.
