Thanksgiving…and a foray into the Spanish healthcare system

This is a two-part post and neither topic has anything to do with the other…

Thanksgiving – Two weeks ago was Thanksgiving, and since it’s not exactly a well-known or highly celebrated holiday in Spain (for obvious reasons…), my friends and I wanted to go all out. Kyle went to our local Carniceria and put an order in for a Turkey a few days before Thanksgiving, and my friends and I started preparing delicious side dishes a day in advance. I volunteered to make sweet potatoes, since they’re one of my favorite things to eat on Thanksgiving, and they also conveniently only have three ingredients: sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and butter. In order to get the ingredients, though, I had to go to three different stores (I’ll never take US supermarkets for granted anymore…). My most exciting adventure in gathering these three products came from going to our local fruit and vegetable place near our apartment, which is owned by an interesting (married?) couple. The man’s job is to make sure that everything is stocked and the floors are clean, and the woman’s job is to work the cash-register. These seem to be intrinsic roles for the two, since the man spends his down time in the store’s back-room (or quietly staring out of the shop’s big window that looks over Calle Valladolid), while the woman occupies her time multitasking by operating the cash register, answering questions from customers, and talking on her cell phone. Upon entering the small store, I head over to a basket of what looks like sweet potatoes, labeled “Batatas,” and grab three sizable ones. I’d used these in the past to make sweet potato fries, but to make sure I was purchasing the right thing, I double-checked with the talkative woman. I asked her if these were “patatas dulces,” which literally translates into “sweet potatoes,” and she shook her head no, saying, they’re “batatas.” Hmm, great. I was pretty certain that “patatas dulces” was not the correct name for sweet potatoes in Spain, so I tried to ask her if I could cook them like sweet potatoes: in the oven or on the stove with butter and brown sugar. She stared at me for a second and then said something equivalent to, “I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before, but let me know how it goes.”

Luckily, the sweet potatoes turned out pretty well, as did all of the rest of the food that my friends and I prepared: a turkey, vegetarian stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple pie, gravy, assorted vegetables, and cranberry sauce (which was from a can, but that’s the best way to have it). Kyle and Cathy (another Fulbrighter who works with Kyle at his school) invited over about 10 of their teachers to share Thanksgiving with us, and it was great to mix American food with Spanish wine (not to mention the company). One of the most interesting/entertaining parts of the night was when one teacher hopped up on our kitchen counter, opened one of our windows, and began smoking. All-in-all, Thanksgiving went really well, and I thought we did a pretty solid job for a small group of friends under the age of 25, with little to no experience cooking….anything.

A Trip to the ER! – At around 3 on the last day of November, I left my apartment and headed to the gym, which is two metro stops away and takes about 15 minutes to get to. I got to the gym, worked out, and everything was normal until I finished my last exercise. At that point, I got up and felt pretty light-headed. I walked around for a bit, tried to do another exercise, and realized that I couldn’t. I felt short of breath and every time I breathed in, there was a pain in my lower back and near my heart. I talked with a trainer, and he suggested that I sit down for a while and relax. After doing so for about 20 minutes, I got up slowly and left the gym, feeling slightly better. However, after walking about 100 feet, I was out of breath and I realized that it would take me about an hour to get back home if I had to stop every few minutes to catch my breath. So, I went back to the gym and asked if there was a medic there. There wasn’t, so one of the trainers told me that he would walk me to a nearby hospital (about three blocks away). This was when I met…Fundación Jiménez Díaz.

I entered the hospital (Fundación Jiménez Díaz) and went up to the reception window for the ER. I showed the receptionist the insurance card that I’d been given by the Fulbright Commission, and they stared at it, returned it to me, and said that I needed to contact the insurance company and have them fax over some information stating that it was okay for me to be seen at this hospital. Needless to say, I was not very happy with this response. So, I called an emergency number for the US Embassy and they told me to give the hospital my address in Spain and tell them that I would pay the bill later. The woman on the phone assured me that I could not be turned away at the ER, and after explaining this to the receptionist, she admitted me. This was at 5PM. I sat in the waiting room until 6:30, when I heard a nurse say “Ebans Har-off,” which I could distinctly make out, since it was so different from the typical Spanish names that floated around the waiting room (along with the smell of cigarettes). I walked into a nurses office, was given a wrist-band like I was getting a VIP pass for a cool concert, and then was sent back to the waiting room. Between 6:30 and 8 (when I was seen by a doctor), I witnessed an older man light a cigarette next to a pregnant woman. The woman scolded the man promptly, he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, stomped on it, and then placed it back in his mouth. Only in Spain!

Once I was seen by the doctor, he told me that I needed x-rays of my chest. So, I waited for another hour, got my x-rays, and by 10:30 was waiting to talk to the doctor about the results of the x-rays. In passing, from one patient to another, he told me (or at least I thought he told me) that I was going to be released soon. However, before he came back to speak with me, I was ushered into a room and told to take off all of my clothes. I was pretty confused at this point, an the nurse told me that I had to stay in the hospital for a few days because my left lung had partially collapsed. Big Joder. This happened to my brother a few years back, so I was kind of aware of what it meant/entailed, but I was nonetheless pretty shaken. Also, at this point it’s about 11:30 and no one has been notified that I’m in the hospital, since I didn’t take my cell phone with me to the gym. Over the next few hours, I pleaded with the nurses and doctors to let me make a call, and by 2AM, I was able to make one call (it kind of felt like I was in a prison at this point). I don’t have any Spanish numbers memorized, so I had the hospital operator call my mom i the US. I explained the situation to her, and then she relayed it to the rest of my family and some of my friends in Spain.

This story is getting too long, so I’m going to try to wrap it up quickly. I stayed in the hospital from Monday until Wednesday afternoon and was in a room with about 12 dying Spaniards. My bed was placed right next to an “isolated” room where the nurses put people that they thought had Swine Flu. Every time the nurses put their gloves and masks on to enter that “isolation room,” a nice breeze hit me in the face. Mmmm. Staying in the hospital wasn’t fun, but Kyle, my other friends, my teachers, and the Fulbright people were really amazing and they made my time there much easier. Since Dec. 2 I’ve been home recouping and after a follow-up appointment this past Monday, my lung is only 5% collapsed, as opposed to the 20% that it was before. I should be pretty much back to normal by next week, but the chances of having another collapsed lung are about 20%. If it happens again, then I’ll have to get the same surgery that my brother got a few years ago. Maybe that’ll make our brotherly bond even stronger?!?

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