The Samaritan Hospital

No overseas experience is ever really complete unless you have the opportunity or misfortune to dip into the medical establishment in a foreign country.  When I think through the last 17.5 years of overseas living vis-à-vis medical care, I remember...

     ...having my eyeglasses stolen from a hotel room in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and having to go to a Mexican eye doctor to get a new prescription for my glasses.  I obviously answered the questions wrong because when I put the new glasses on and left the doctor's office, I couldn't manage to step off the curb because the prescription was so wrong.

     .....being pregnant in Maputo and having regular check-ups in South Africa with a humorless, but good and pragmatic, OB/GYN. 

     ..... Mac having a massive allergic reaction in his eye to sunscreen on a vacation in Fortaleza.  His eye looked like a fish eye, all puffed out and lumpy.  It was the most horrible experience of my parenthood.  We frantically asked the majordomo of the rental house to take us to the hospital, and naturally but unbeknownst to us, he took us to the free public hospital with a surly female doctor who whipped out a humongous needle and gave Mac a big shot in the backside.

     ..... taking Mac to the ER in Sao Paulo one Mother's Day very early in the morning where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Jimmy had already left the country for his Afghanistan training, and I was sure I didn't understand any of the terminology or medicine doses.

     ..... having Lasik surgery in Bogota as a 40th birthday present to myself and hoping that I understood everything correctly and wouldn't go blind.

And now here we find ourselves at the hospital in Rio after 3 months of living here.  After years of suffering from a bum shoulder, Jimmy is finally having surgery to repair the shoulder today.  The anesthesiologist just called to tell me that surgery is underway.  He has promised updates along the way.

I am sure this procedure would be outpatient in the US, but they are keeping Jimmy overnight.  After checking out the place and the service, I'm wondering what I could have done to spend a few nights here.

For starters, when we were checking Jimmy in, they gave him a bag of Granado toiletries.  Granado is my favorite Brazilian soap/cream company, and I was tempted to steal the bag because Jimmy was using the restroom when they handed it over and he never would have been the wiser.  Let's be honest:  is he really going to need shampoo and conditioner for one night in the hospital?  I bet he's not even allowed to take a shower.

Shampoo, conditioner, soap and cream.... all wasted on the patient.

Then they brought us up to his room, which is called an apartment.  I know small apartments, and this is definitely just a room, but still.  Calling it an apartment sounds way nicer than "room".  He got settled in, the doctor and anesthesiologist came in to visit, the nurses came for a survey, and then they brought him a pre-anesthesia pill to make him sleepy. 

He requested the XXL size and this is what they brought.  It was a little snug.

When he was getting sleepy, this nice lady from food services came in with a fruit tray for us and a tray of waters, juices and soft drinks that she left in our mini-fridge.  Um, hello.  There's a mini-fridge in the hospital apartment and it has a big bottle of Perrier in it, thanks to that nice lady.  Perrier?!?  I don't even buy that for home. 

As she was dropping off all her goodies, she asked if I'd like lunch delivered to the room.  

Um, hello, again.  

I am my mother's child, so I'd brought a bag full of snacks, but I'd heard the food was good here, so I demurely said that if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I would love to have lunch delivered.  She said she'd be back in a moment with the menu. 

The menu.

The.Menu.

In the hospital apartment.

So she returned and I had a choice of two salads (I chose the green leaf lettuce and beets), a choice of several entrees (I chose chicken in a mustard sauce) and as many sides as I wanted (I chose rice that has a lot of veggies and egg in it and some black beans).  Then we got to dessert and drinks.  The dessert of the day was something with plums in it, which in hindsight was probably delicious, but I got confused with vocabulary and thought "ameixa" was prune and I said, "no thank you".   Instead I got a delicious fruit salad that was not your average can of US hospital canned fruit cocktail.  It was freshly cut-up mango, papaya, grapes, apples, oranges and pineapples.  As for the drink, it felt greedy to request anything more so I said I would drink something from the mini-fridge.  Like the Perrier.

I am pleased to tell you that lunch was delicious.  She's already asked if I would like to see the dinner menu to make my selection, but I've got to go home to feed Mac something for dinner.

Hmmmmm.  I wonder if they do to-go meals here....

More on the patient post-surgery!