I recommence my story with a tale of my day off.
Sundays are off days. Not that I don’t do anything mind you, but I have the day for studying and preparing for my classes. Sabbath night I volunteered to do Elizabeth’s guardia, more commonly known as night duty in the great land of America, at the La Centro de Salude, also know as the health center to the English speakers. Guardia begins at 5:00 and goes until 6:30 the next day, which naturally begins Domingo, my day off. Shortly after I arrived for guardia, my very first guardia by the way, Dr. Giovanna came to the center and asked me to do her a favor. Sure. Back home favors include such things as fetching a pen, or giving someone a message. But we are in Venezuela. So she asked me to give one of the patients a hyperthermia treatment at 8 o’clock before going to bed. Sure, I’ll just do that real quick-like before going to bed…
The next day around 6:29, when I was just heading home for a nice cold shower and breakfast, Dr. Giovanna arrived at the window. Oh hi, you again. What would you suppose, but that she asks me to do her a favor. …sure. In America favors include such things as making a patient a cup of tea or perchance putting the washing from the washer into the dryer. But we are in Venezuela. “Would you mind giving a hyperthermia treatment to Jheiline?” Sure, I can give a fever treatment to the nearly disabled MS patient. I’ll just do that real quick-like before going home on this my day off from the health center.
OK, so I go to her room and wake her up, ask another girl to help me get her up into her wheel chair, wheel her to the Jacuzzi and put her in. When it was over I thought I had killed the poor girl because she completely limp with her eyes closed and wasn’t talking. I even took her pulse just to make sure. So then I went to get some help getting her out of the Jacuzzi. This girl is pretty solid.
I find my room mate in the kitchen (don’t tell the folks back home I committed the unpardonable sin of leaving my patient alone). Good! Maryalex, please I need your help! Fortunately the idea translated from English to Spanish. So we both get down into the tub and hoist her out onto the edge (harder than it sounds). Next obstacle is to get slipper, wet, heavy, limp, half dead patient into the wheel chair. You take the shoulders, I’ll take the legs. But for all we were worth we just could not get her into the wheel chair. In fact for all we were worth we could barely keep her up off the floor. So Maryalex starts yelling for the only male in the building to come help. Arsenio! Come! Rapido! (come was in Spanish, but I don’t remember the word at the moment) Jheiline is getting closer to the floor by the second. Rapido! Arsenio arrives and gets her into the wheel chair. I look like I just went for a swim. Ok, into the bedroom. Almost done. Jheiline revives enough to start sobbing. Now what did I do. Cindy explains to me (in Spanish) something about spiritus and Diablo and makes choking motions to her throat. So she prays with Jheiline and then leaves me alone with the sobbing girl. Great. So I sang to her. And sang. Until finally she calmed down and I was able to go clean up the treatment room.
OK, well I think I’m going to go home now. Did I mention it is my day off.
Unfortunately for me I spy a pile of dishes in the kitchen as I’m heading out the door and am overcome with guilt. So I start washing the dishes. Dana comes to me and asks “Are you going home?” Yup! Going home…appearances are deceiving, I am actually on my way home despite the fact that I am elbow deep in soapy water. “Oh…” (sounding quite remorseful). She tries again. “You are going. Leaving?” As if rephrasing it will change the circumstances. “That’s right sweetness…I’m on my way home…By the way, did I mention it is my day off. Why do you ask?”
Sundays are off days. Not that I don’t do anything mind you, but I have the day for studying and preparing for my classes. Sabbath night I volunteered to do Elizabeth’s guardia, more commonly known as night duty in the great land of America, at the La Centro de Salude, also know as the health center to the English speakers. Guardia begins at 5:00 and goes until 6:30 the next day, which naturally begins Domingo, my day off. Shortly after I arrived for guardia, my very first guardia by the way, Dr. Giovanna came to the center and asked me to do her a favor. Sure. Back home favors include such things as fetching a pen, or giving someone a message. But we are in Venezuela. So she asked me to give one of the patients a hyperthermia treatment at 8 o’clock before going to bed. Sure, I’ll just do that real quick-like before going to bed…
The next day around 6:29, when I was just heading home for a nice cold shower and breakfast, Dr. Giovanna arrived at the window. Oh hi, you again. What would you suppose, but that she asks me to do her a favor. …sure. In America favors include such things as making a patient a cup of tea or perchance putting the washing from the washer into the dryer. But we are in Venezuela. “Would you mind giving a hyperthermia treatment to Jheiline?” Sure, I can give a fever treatment to the nearly disabled MS patient. I’ll just do that real quick-like before going home on this my day off from the health center.
OK, so I go to her room and wake her up, ask another girl to help me get her up into her wheel chair, wheel her to the Jacuzzi and put her in. When it was over I thought I had killed the poor girl because she completely limp with her eyes closed and wasn’t talking. I even took her pulse just to make sure. So then I went to get some help getting her out of the Jacuzzi. This girl is pretty solid.
I find my room mate in the kitchen (don’t tell the folks back home I committed the unpardonable sin of leaving my patient alone). Good! Maryalex, please I need your help! Fortunately the idea translated from English to Spanish. So we both get down into the tub and hoist her out onto the edge (harder than it sounds). Next obstacle is to get slipper, wet, heavy, limp, half dead patient into the wheel chair. You take the shoulders, I’ll take the legs. But for all we were worth we just could not get her into the wheel chair. In fact for all we were worth we could barely keep her up off the floor. So Maryalex starts yelling for the only male in the building to come help. Arsenio! Come! Rapido! (come was in Spanish, but I don’t remember the word at the moment) Jheiline is getting closer to the floor by the second. Rapido! Arsenio arrives and gets her into the wheel chair. I look like I just went for a swim. Ok, into the bedroom. Almost done. Jheiline revives enough to start sobbing. Now what did I do. Cindy explains to me (in Spanish) something about spiritus and Diablo and makes choking motions to her throat. So she prays with Jheiline and then leaves me alone with the sobbing girl. Great. So I sang to her. And sang. Until finally she calmed down and I was able to go clean up the treatment room.
OK, well I think I’m going to go home now. Did I mention it is my day off.
Unfortunately for me I spy a pile of dishes in the kitchen as I’m heading out the door and am overcome with guilt. So I start washing the dishes. Dana comes to me and asks “Are you going home?” Yup! Going home…appearances are deceiving, I am actually on my way home despite the fact that I am elbow deep in soapy water. “Oh…” (sounding quite remorseful). She tries again. “You are going. Leaving?” As if rephrasing it will change the circumstances. “That’s right sweetness…I’m on my way home…By the way, did I mention it is my day off. Why do you ask?”
I’ll spare you the details and skip right to the next hyperthermia treatment that I end up giving. Maria is a good patient. I think we are doing really well. Twenty minutes at 103.5 degrees. We finish the treatment. I pour cold water all over her (the same frigid water I take showers with ever day by the way), and I get her up. OK, we’re doing good. Then she starts to turn green. Or maybe she was already green but I just hadn’t noticed. Things are different in Venezuela as I might have mentioned before. She then vomits todo breakfast, todo supper from yesterday, todo lunch from yesterday, todo…well you get the picture. I think I started to turn green at that point. Fortunately I hadn’t eaten breakfast, neither had I eaten supper the day before and my lunch from yesterday was long, long gone.
Ok, so we’ll skip the clean-up details. Now I am really on my way out. I’m going, saranara, asta lavista, today is my day off.
Then I bump into Mary. “Where are you going?”
“Where am I going? Home! I’m going home! Did I mention today is my day off? How do you say that in Spanish? Day off. Repeat slowly after me…day…off. Caio. See you later.”
“Aren’t you going to give your patient a massage?” (In spanish)
“Well I wasn’t really considering it…(in English)”
The idea didn’t translate.
She won out. I gave the massage. And proceeded to sneak out the back door when I was done. At 1:30.
I’m going to start using the phrase “NO intiendes!”
melissa
