buen salud

When students graduate from medical school in Mexico they spend one year serving in health clinics all over the country, including in small villages such as ours. They live in a little apartment at the clinic, hold regular hours, and are available 24/7 for emergencies. After their public service they go on to do specialty training. I think this is a great system; they get lots of experience, villagers get good (mostly) medical attention. The personnel changes every year so if you need the services you never know who will open the door. Four years ago our friend Carolyn became very ill. We took her to the clinica here as a first step. The doctora got her stabilized (she had a ruptured hernia and was in terrible pain), got her on a drip, called the emergency room at the hospital in Tecoman and, together with the Patient and me, got her into our car and drove with us to the hospital. All the while she was holding the drip bag and squatting over Carolyn who was lying down on the van floor. Now that's service!

Thursday afternoon the Patient needed medical attention for what appears to be a staph infection in his finger. It had been developing since Tuesday afternoon and finally got so bad he agreed to see the doc. There was angry swelling around the cuticle and it was very painful. The new doctora appears to be about Emily's age (14 next month). She took one look and seemed to know what to do; disinfect, numb, lance, drain, prescribe antibiotics. Dressed in her low-rise jeans and T-shirt, she was quick, efficient, no-nonsense. The cost for all of this, including the drugs? Whatever you would like to pay. It's all free. What you pay is considered a donation to the clinica and undoubtedly offsets the costs of those who are unable to contribute.

It's Saturday, the tile layer has run out of blanco tiles for the counter tops, if Garza doesn't have any we're out of luck. What to do, what to do? My solution is to tune in the opera, "Manon Lescaut" today, and think about it tomorrow. You may recall that this is called the "baseball" opera: (Man-on Let's-go). I don't know where I first heard that but thought I'd pass it on, it being Spring Training time and all.