I seem to be always testing the Catalunya medical system. Last time I was in Barcelona I had to have emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction at what I consider the world famous Hospital del Mar. Leea doesn't think it qualifies as world famous just because it saved my life and I told all my friends about it, but I disagree. The emergency surgery involved an ambulance, emergency room, surgery and four days in the hospital. The care was fantastic, the cost was $13,000. Two days before I left on that trip I was at Mission Hospital for a bowel obstruction that cleared. That involved emergency room and one night in the hospital. No ambulance, only one night in the hospital, and no surgery. The care was good and the cost was $14,000. I believe from my experience the services rendered in Barcelona would have been well over $ 150,000 if that had occurred at home.
This trip I have had a nasty bout of diarrhea since before I left Morocco and imodium was not touching it. I felt like a sewage drain pipe, if you know what I mean. I probably just picked up some little bug my body is not used to dealing with. This happened to me in China too. It's not that the country is germy, they just have different parasites and germs or maybe we don't have enough with all our air, hand and surface sterilizer. It's a wonder we have any resistance at all. That shit makes me crazy, the hand sanitizer, not my current medical issue. But maybe my current medical condition is making me crazy too.
Anyway, this had been going on for four days and Wednesday morning I awoke with the chills, so I decided caution was the better course. I know the Spanish health care system is par excellence, and I don't know anything about the Turkish medical system. So I decide I should probably see a doctor here, before we leave for Istanbul. I go down to the front desk and tell them I need a doctor. They give me directions to the nearest medical clinic which is a five minute walk from the hotel. At this point, I want someone to bring the doctor to me, but that is not going to happen, so I walk over to the clinic and go to the front desk. There are two people in front of me so a wait a minute for my turn. I explain to the person that I need to see a doctor, and he directs me to a room where a nice young man asks me about my problems, ascertains I am not a resident of the EU and so don't qualify for free medical care, tells me it will be sixty euros to see a doctor and inquires if that is acceptable to me. He takes my money and information from my passport and sends me to the sixth floor.
It's 8:30 and the doctors don't begin work until 9. At ten until nine I'm called into the doctor's office, she asks me about my medical issue, asks pertinent questions to rule out more serious problems and sends me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics, a prescription for an anti diarrhea medicine, instructions to buy some Tylenol and a thermometer, and instructions to eat only white rice, bananas, and apples for a day or two. She tells me I should feel better in 24 to 48 hours. Oh and all of this was done in Spanish. She didn't speak English. I really am learning!
I leave the clinic and go to the Farmácia down the street from our hotel and purchase the thermometer, Tylenol (paracetamol in Spain), diarrhea medicine and the antibiotics. Total cost 16 € or about $20. Ok, that's my third experience with the public health system in Spain. It's efficient, effective and cheap. It would have been free, except maybe the thermometer, if I was a citizen. We are definitely doing something wrong.
I took the medicine and ate bananas and rice. The next day I suffered an extraordinarily nasty headache, like someone was driving stake through my head. Caffeine withdrawals. The second morning I hazarded a cup of café con leche and the headache disappeared. Today I had frozen yogurt for breakfast. It was very good, as good as the frozen Greek yogurt I got in Boulder a while ago. That was kind of iffy so I had a banana for lunch. But by dinner time I was feeling better so I had Paella Marinera on Las Ramblas. All is well. I am looking forward to Turkish food. The good news is, whatever weight I gained from all the good food in Morocco went out the drain pipe. hehehe
While we have been roaming about Barcelona, Leea and I have been looking for the world famous Hospital del Mar. It took us two days and a gps to find it. I have an excuse because I arrived in an ambulance and left in a taxi. Leea on the other hand came and went to this hospital several times while I was there. I was wondering why I was spending all this time and walking to find a hospital, even a world famous one. But we found it and after I took a couple of pictures, I turned around, and walked across the street to the beach. Oh did I mention I had an ocean view from the room? While I was looking at the ocean I thanked God, for the last three years, for the last twenty eight years for my life and my sobriety. Now I know why I needed to find the Hospital del Mar.
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