Navigating Healthcare

Let me tell you a story:
One morning a girl named Lauren was brushing her hair as girls are wont to do.  Suddenly, something in her neck popped very loudly.  Or at least so it seemed to her.  This neck pop proved to cause such pain that she was sent to her knees immediately with a cry of pain sounding something like the first name of the author of a certain book she is required to read for her school called The Fountainhead.  Side note: I maintain that Ayn could only be the cry of pain of a woman giving birth and that inspired her parents who previously had no idea what to name a girl.  That would explain why she hates women so much.  In any event, she slowly got dressed and made her way to breakfast where her host mother took one look at her and decided that she needed to see an orthopedist.  She was quickly whisked off to the hospital.

True story.  I had to go to a hospital in Puerto Rico on Thursday the 28th of June, 2012 and let me tell you, I am so glad I did.  Other than the expected hurry up and wait of walking around a hospital, it was one of the most efficient healthcare experiences I have ever had.  We did not have to wait for bureaucracy, only for our turn in the cue (and even then my host mom somehow managed to get us to the front of the line at the orthopedist) and for x-rays to be done.  The doctor wanted a weird angle of my neck so the x-rays took a bit of doing, but we got it on the fourth try.  Then we went back to the orthopedist and he promptly told us that a muscle spasm had kicked the curvature of my cervical spine out of place.  I am now on some pretty trippy muscle relaxants and a really good pain reliever.  Somewhat hilariously one of the side effects of the pain reliever is neck stiffness, but once that wears off they work really well and for the most part don't make me feel like I'm high.  I'm in a neck brace and taking my drugs religiously and things are improving steadily.

However I would like to make the point that this is why studying a foreign language is awesome.  I take spanish and, while my parts of the body/visiting the doctor spanish is a little rusty it really helped that I knew how to piece together a sentence during the times when my host mom and my friend Pia could not be with me.

The moral of this story: the hospital in Arecibo is really efficient and speaking multiple languages is awesome.

Me in my sexy neck brace with Dylan (another friend who left on Friday) and my friend Pia with whom I'm staying.
I've linked to their tumblrs.