Hanne and the Hospital

On our ecuador agenda, one of the things we were not planning to do was visit the hospital. That was however, before Hanne developed a fever, a nasty soar throat, and (of all things) pain (remeber how she was to sick to go to Mindo?, well, it only go worse). After trying to treat it our selves (Did you know that they sell antibiotics over the counter here? I had an exciting trip to a pharmacy to explain, in spanish, why we needed them) and having no sucsess, Wensday´s activity became a trip to the ER.

While I have no more medical training then the next person, I concluded that Hanne had strep throat. This caused our host family to do a number of things including: boiling all the silverware Hanne might have used in the last week, start avoiding Hanne, start trying to convince me that Hanne got sick because she a) wasn´t taking enough vitamins (our host mom is a vitamin sales-women) and b) doesn´t wear shoes in the house, which everyone here aparently does. This ment more explaining, in spanish, that Strep was air born but they probably wouldn´t get it, and that cooking the silverware wouldn´t help (we didn´t tell them that if they were going to get infected, they already were: we just told them they wouldn´t...)

A call to the travelers insurance told us to go to the Hospital Metropolitano, Quito´s main hospital. We took a cap there. In truth, it was no differant from any other ER I have been in (not that I have ever seen more then one), except that everone here spoke Spanish. After using the translator to get through the paperwork, we were shown to a room, were they did a number of tests, gave Hanne some medicine (which is aparently working, as she is starting to feel better), and sent us on our way, telling us to come back Friday to get the results of one of the tests. We were lucky enough to get a docter who spoke english (even if none of the nurses did), and, well, I guess that is all there is to tell.