A couple weeks ago our lovely neighbors were burning all sorts of horrible things in front of our house and the black acrid smoke came billowing in through the windows. I can only describe the stench as a cross between moldy leaves, plastic forks and carcinogenic chemicals. Jim immediately began hacking and by dinner time he was running a very high fever. Of course I decided this by touching his face because we don’t have a thermometer.

The next day Jim was week and sick and I was popping him full of Tylenol to keep the fever down. It was an odd cycle of sorts. Jim would be sweating with chills and a high fever and I would want to take him to the doctor, but he couldn’t walk into town so I would give him several Tylenol and in an hour his fever would be reduced and he would feel a lot better so we wouldn’t go to the doctor. Yeah, stupid, I know.

It didn’t help that we had a weekend excursion planned to a tiny town called Montezuma. We packed Jim in the back of the van and he slept all the way there. Once we arrived in town he slept almost the whole weekend. Once again I thought it was a good idea to go to the doctor, but there isn’t a doctor in Montezuma. So we stuck to Tylenol and lots of sleep.

By the end of the weekend Jim’s fever was gone and his cough wasn’t as bad as it had been, although it was still pretty bad. We came back to Samara and he seemed to be doing a lot better.

Well, yesterday Jim and I were supposed to leave on the 3PM bus to San Jose and then were going to catch the 9AM bus this morning to Panama. Around noon he had a horrible relapse and was incredibly sick with a cough and fever. It is stressful trying to make travel arrangements and then have a person get very ill. The most stressful part is that we have to be out of our house by Monday, so Jim can’t take the week to lay around and recover.

I knew he needed to go to the doctor immediately, but didn’t know where the office was or if they were even open. Our roommate, Cyril, who is from Costa Rica, was not being very helpful in acquiring information so I did a mental checklist of the resources at hand. I figured that any major hotel has an emergency number for a doctor in case one of their guests gets ill. I called the large resort that is in town and the woman at the front desk was very helpful. She gave me the doctor’s home number and cell number.

I called the doctor and was trying to speak Spanish over the phone, but I was flustered and worried about getting somebody to see Jim. Luckily the doctor speaks perfect English and I was able to convey what was going on. He opened his office for us and said that he was going to send a taxi to pick up Jim since he couldn’t walk and we don’t have a car. We waited for a half hour before an SUV finally pulled up outside our house. Jim and I climbed in the back and were sitting there for a bit before the man driving turned around and said, “I’m not a taxi. I am the doctor.” The doctor couldn’t get a taxi to come get us so he drove over himself!

Doctor Soto took us to his clinic where his wife is his assistant and immediately put Jim on an IV. Jim was extremely dehydrated and sucked up three pints of fluids within two hours. The doctor was so cool. He hung out with us and was watching HBO movies while Jim was on the IV. After Jim had a bag of IV fluid and some other intravenous drugs, the doctor ordered him a bowl of soup from the Italian restaurant next door. Jim had hardly eaten anything all day and it was promising to see that he had his appetite back.

Doctor Soto took me aside at one point to give me all the medication that Jim needs to take this week. It involves five different prescriptions, one being Zithromax, and they all have to be taken at different times in different doses. Once we got back to the house, Jacinta, one of our roommates, had to write it all down for me so I wouldn’t forget which ones at what time.

After we were at the doctor for a few hours Jim was feeling a lot better. His color was back and he was sweating again (before he was too dehydrated). We paid a whopping $214 for the checkup, transportation, medication and soup (anybody in the states knows that this would have been many thousands of dollars in a US emergency room) and we got to hang out with the really cool doctor for a bit. The doctor was sure to give us a receipt so that Jim can send it into his insurance company and drove us back to our house.

Jim has an appointment to see the doctor Monday morning so we are sure that the medication is working. Today Jim is feeling a lot better and we are being careful to feed him warm food and lots of water! Our trip to Panama has been postponed for a couple of days, but we are hoping to make it there Tuesday, instead.