The Saga Continues

Wednesday is done... that means two things. I'm am done with spanish lectures until I return from Chone, and Its my third day of ER in the Maternity hospital. Its very surprising how common Pre-Eclampsia is here. According to the Doc its mainly do to lack of access to good healthcare, and unhealthy food. Probably the second most common problem is infection. Its very common as well.  I want to touch again on some of the differences here. There is definitely a more laid back feel here. The doctors actually play music the whole time on their computers which would most likely be deemed unprofessional were a Doctor to play music in the ER. Yesterday was extremely slow for an ER but thats how it goes. Today it was upbeat as soon as I walked in. The patient was a mid 30s woman with acute (agudo) abdominal pain. We wheeled her down the corridor to get an ultrasound. The hallway and the waiting room for the "sonografista" was full of women waiting which was also much different than the states. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on because it WAS an emergency so the Doctors were talking really fast and i'm not too keen on reading ultrasounds. What I did get out of it was they were extensively checking her kidneys. It turns out they initially thought she had some form of kidney issues but it turned out to be an appendicitis.

The whole day was fairly hectic. With the Ecuadorian music in the background and the high tempo of the ER yields quite the contrast. The hospital had to send quite a few patients to "el hospital del sur" which is a bigger public hospital in the southern part of Quito (i'm fairly north). There was one patient who was the first Ectopic pregnancy (the egg implants outside the uterus, usually the fallopian tube) I have seen this week. As one can imagine she was not happy to hear she couldn't be admitted and had to go to another hospital for surgery. Other than that there were a few concerned mothers about their babies "not moving" (no se mueve bién mi bebe) and others with "contraction-like" pain.

Spanish classes were getting pretty difficult and frustrating. Everyone in the class was in the same boat because what we're learning really has no direct translation to english, therefore its hard to comprehend.  Thats all I have for now,
Adios!!