As I mentioned in the last post, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the US election. On Friday, November 11th, I was unable to sleep because I was worried about my country and thinking about what to say both to Ecuadorians and in my blog. Around 1 am, my host mom comes and bangs on my door shouting, “My son is in the hospital! He was hit by a car! Come with me please!”
I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, and tried to comfort Bertha enough to drive as we went to the hospital. I realized later I’d forgotten to take out my retainer. We got to the emergency room and they let her go back to the room where he was, and I waited outside because I obviously was not related. When I say outside, I mean literally outside. Guards blocked the entrance to the building, I suppose to keep people out of the way of the doctors and emergency personnel. But there was a waiting room inside the building full of chairs with maybe only a couple of people occupying them. Everyone else waited outside sitting on the sidewalk or on plastic chairs under a little roof, like a bus stop. It’s usually in the 50’s here at night, and everyone was bundled up with blankets, coats, and hats. I wasn’t worried about me because I am young and healthy and had a sweatshirt, but it made me angry to see children and elderly people waiting out in the cold, possibly for hours, when there were perfectly good chairs inside and out of the way. I still don’t understand it.
I stood outside and looked through a window for any signs of Bertha or Carlos. Eventually she came out and said he was stable and doing alright. Then she said we needed to go to a pharmacy to buy medicine that the doctors needed. I had heard that this was part of the Ecuadorian healthcare system, where patients buy medicine and tools needed for the procedure. On the one hand, the patient knows they are not being overcharged for medical care and they know exactly what their money is going towards. However, you see the flaws in the system when you accompany a terrified and grief-stricken mother driving through the streets at 2 am looking for an open pharmacy. Finally, we found an open one, but she had to bang on the door to get them to open up. I can’t help but think, what if he had been in critical condition and desperately needed that medicine to live?
We got back to the emergency room with the medicine but Bertha made me wait in the car out of the cold. I was still within sight of the hospital, and prayed for another hour for my brother, the people waiting outside, and their loved ones inside. Around 3 am, Bertha came out and said he was stable and doing well and that she would feel better if she took me home so I could sleep. I really did not think I would be able to, but I did sleep for five hours. Bertha came home around 10 o’clock the next morning and we had breakfast, cleaned the house, and did laundry to get rid of every trace from the night before. After all the scans, he only had a broken arm and was scraped up pretty badly on his left side.
All things considering, he was very lucky. He had had a tough med school test the day before, and went out to celebrate with friends afterward. He had not had a drink in about a month and a half, and he got drunk very quickly. He also had a fight with one of the friends he was with, and they separated, which was unusual. Apparently he was trying to cross a street and was the victim of a hit and run accident. The police found him and took him to the hospital. Bertha had woken up around 12:30 am and started calling Carlos, since that was when he had planned to come home. She called and called but he did not answer. The phone had died, but when he got the hospital, the doctor charged the phone and answered Bertha’s call. He said the owner of this phone had been hit by a car and was in the hospital, and after learning that he was her son, told her to come to the emergency room. Basically every parent’s worst nightmare of a phone call.
Bertha said when she first got there, the doctors asked him what hurt and he said my 7thvertebrae! (since he had just taken a test on that). Then, he started speaking in English, and the doctors were confused and asked him why since no one was speaking English. He said he had to call his sister. That made them worry, since he was an only child and they told him that. He explained that there was a girl living with them who spoke English and he needed to call her, she was his sister. So, I am not sure why he felt like he needed to call me in English, but we definitely bonded that night. Before I knew any of that, I had sent him a message wishing that my brother would get better soon. Ever since then, we have called each other ñaño and ñaña, which is how little kids here say hermano and hermana, brother and sister.
That started two weeks of being in and out of the hospital. Since both bones in his forearm were broken, they decided to operate to fix it, just to be safe. He was able to come home some while they waited for the tools needed for the surgery to arrive. When he was in the hospital, we always went for visiting hours and were able to play cards and Jenga with him and other friends who visited. The hospital room was always so hot and sticky feeling, in direct contract to my cold and sterile associations with hospitals. However, the care by the doctors and nurses was excellent. Carlos finally had surgery and all is well. He is so glad to be home in his own bed and with more sources of entertainment. Things are finally returning to normal around here, and we are hoping for no more scares like this.
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