I had a little bit of an adventure yesterday, and by "adventure" I mean "terrifying medical nightmare". At least it was a learning experience.
Let me begin by saying that gastroenteritis is a nasty little bugger. I felt a little queasy Tuesday night, no big deal. I figured having zucchini soup for dinner will do that to you. Around 2 am I started regretting all my gastronomic choices when I found myself throwing up. And I didn't stop for about 9 hours. So that was fun.
Obviously I did not go to class. That's a pretty big deal for me. I've only taken a sick day from school about three or four times in my whole life, and only for really serious stuff like pneumonia or a fever of 102°F. It's a good thing I didn't go to class. It's also a good thing that my roommate got out of class twenty minutes early, because us both being in the house at the same time was a pretty important part of the ensuing disaster.
I got up out of bed to make the arduous 5-foot journey to the bathroom to throw up for the 41st time that day, but instead of vomiting, I just fainted. I apparently grabbed the door handle on my way down, causing the door to slam back into the wall and panicking my roommate and my señora, who came running from the kitchen. I remember kneeling on the ground saying I couldn't feel my hands. Thank god for my wonderful roommate, who stayed totally calm and translated all my concerns into Spanish and promised to stick with me as long as she was allowed to. Liz, you're the real MVP.
Anyway, by the time they got me back into bed I couldn't feel my hands or legs and I couldn't form words properly, so it was time for some advanced medical attention. We called my school and also the EMTs, so now my principal has seen me crying in my pajamas and that's just great. The paramedics wanted to take me to the hospital because I appeared seriously dehydrated, so they half carried, half made me walk downstairs to the ambulance and took me to the hospital. After having a few sips of water and lying down for a while, I was coherent enough to appreciate how cool riding in an ambulance is, and then to realize that the ambulance was completely empty -- devoid of any medical care products at all -- and that I had simply been buckled into the passenger seat and essentially ignored.
Then I got to learn about how Spanish hospitals work. I was brought in in a wheelchair and left to sit for a little while until they called my name, at which point I was taken to the "diagnosis" room, where they decided what kind of care I would need. Then I sat around in the waiting room for a while longer until my name got called again for a blood test and an IV drip. Turns out I had a nasty case of gastroenteritis (stomach flu) and some major-league dehydration. Hence the fainting. I still felt pretty nasty, but after four hours of lying on a very uncomfortable gurney with an IV in my arm, I felt exponentially better. Unfortunately, public hospitals in Spain have no such thing as private rooms or attentive nurses, so I was left unsupervised, lying in the middle of the waiting room with all the other patients, and my IV bag was literally chained to the ceiling. I was only given one saline bag, and I didn't receive any treatment at all until about four hours after I fainted because of how crowded and convoluted the Spanish public health care system is. After I completely emptied my saline bag in an astonighly fast three hours, it took another hour and me accidentally puncturing the IV needle through my veil by sitting up before I could convince a nurse to remove it from my arm. The director of my school stayed with me the whole time, and when I was discharged, barefoot and exhausted, around 8:00 pm, she took me to a pharmacy and then back to my house. I currently feel fantastic, thank god. I'd say my health is at about 98%. Thankfully I don't leave on my spring break trip until Sunday night, so I have plenty of time for tea and naps.
Moral of this story: I don't know. Don't get the flu? Drink water? Avoid free public hospitals in Spain? Just stay healthy, people.