The Good Dr.

By the time I finally went to see him, I was having a hard time telling which way was up.   Cycling through sweats and chills about every five minutes, Kerry had to help me down three flights of stairs.  We took a taxi the four blocks to the office, and the driver was not gentle -- which is to say he was your typical Ecuadorian driver: alternating between stomping on the brakes and gunning it abruptly.  Because of one-way streets, four blocks turned into a dozen.  Every cab ride in town is a dollar, and Kerry paid the fare while I stumbled onto the curb.  

The "waiting room" served a prenatal care doctor and Dr. Pazniño, the general practice doctor whom I would see in about half an hour.  Their glazed glass doors bore their names on opposite sides of the 12 'x 10' room.  The floor was white tile, and there were a dozen chairs against four walls.  A tiny bathroom lurked in the corner, clearly marked, but I also knew instinctively that it was locked (later I tried, and it was).  I tried not to look at it.  The busses whizzing past the window gave me vertigo.  

There were several women waiting and one child, maybe a two-year-old.  Two of the women spoke Kichwa to each other, the traditional language of Otavaleños.  They wore the traditional white embroidered shirts, bands and bands of necklaces and impossible piles of fabric atop their heads that defied gravity.  Another woman in lycra pants read the paper.  The child played with a top, and I tried not to look at the spinning toy.  A father restlessly poked his head in occasionally, picked up the child, set her down, and walked back out -- I felt I could relate to this man.    

The half hour wait was not bad, of course, but it felt long as I cycled through sweats and chills.  It must have been at least 60 degrees (F) outside, but I wore (stupidly) a cotton long sleeve shirt, a long wool shirt, and a fairly heavy fleece.  And still I was chilled.  I wanted to go into the bathroom to shed the cotton.  

After several sets of patients came and went, it was finally my turn.  Clad in doctor's coat, a bespectacled Dr. Pazniño greeted us jovially, offered his hand, and gestured into his office.  It wasn't much bigger than the waiting room, but where the outer chamber was spare, this one was piled with books and papers everywhere.  There was barely an open strip on his desk; each end had stacks of books several feet high.  What light there was filtered in from the window.  We sat down in the chairs in front of his desk and began to tick off the long list of symptoms from a piece of paper Kerry had prepared with the aid of a dictionary.  

Fortunately, there are a lot of cognates with medical terms.  The doctor took notes, and asked questions.  I sat and sweated.  Each time he asked more questions, he took the time -- with very kinetic gestures -- to be sure that we understood him.  Finally, he took me by the shoulder and led me to his table for a physical exam.  I wasn't resisting anything.

He listened to my heart and breathing, and then went for the throat.  One look was apparently enough.  His eyes lit up.  He told Kerry to hold the light while got the tongue depressor out again.  

"Oh.  OH!  Si, si!" she said to him.  The two of them leaned in for another look, and I knew immediately that Kerry would like him.  She likes to have explanations, and the Dr. was providing plenty of them.  And he was not talking down to her; on the contrary, he treated her like a fellow examiner.  He then  compared the back of my throat to the white patterned stucco of the wall.   I had a severe throat infection.  The ubiquitous "polvo" (dust) was apparently the culprit, this being the height of the dry season.

"Trust me," he said in Spanish: "I've been doing this for 31 years; I know what I'm doing."  He already had my trust, but he was going to scrape the back of my throat with a metal instrument.  This would apparently speed up the recovery process significantly.   It would also test my gag reflex significantly. 

A good scraping, one shot in the butt (an anti-inflammatory), one in the arm (an anti-biotic) and a third in the other arm (not sure what it was, but I wasn't questioning), I felt immediately better.

"I feel much better, " I said, "just knowing what it is."

"They always do," said Dr. Pazniño.  "Next time, don't wait so long to come in."

The bill was 40 USD.  Cash money.  Dr. Pazniño put the two twenties right into his desk drawer without looking at them.  He had a couple of prescriptions (in barely scrutable scrawl), including 600 mg of motrin (thank you, Pfizer) to prescribe, and then we were on our way. 

I don't think we spent more than an hour total in the office.  We walked in, the problem was diagnosed, it was treated, and I was out with a hearty handshake.   I walked all the way back to our apartment, feeling drained but reborn.