A Long Week

Well, it has been quite the week. A lot happened, but I’ll see if I can break it down.

Amoebas

So, I was pretty sick all of last week with traveler’s diarrhea. I spent much of the week in bed, unable to keep anything in me. After 5 days and a course of cipro, I actually seemed to be getting worse, so I had to go see a doctor here.

At this point I was tachycardic lying down and just feeling terrible. All I really wanted was suero (an IV). But, the doctor who was a friend of a friend and who was an allopathic and bioenergetic doctor (I’m still trying to figure out what that is), had some other ideas. He prescribed me no less than 5 medications, only one of which was an antibiotic. (And the antibiotic was a sulfa one. I’m still trying to figure out what organisms he was trying to cover that cipro didn’t cover.)

Most of the other medications were probiotics, he also prescribed me some antiemetics and anti-diarrheal medications.

On top of that, he ordered me to not drink anything for another 3 hours, even though I was dehydrated and tachycardic. I think he was thinking that it would help me stop vomiting, but he also wouldn’t give me an IV unless I did vomit more.

You probably all know this, but, if someone is dehydrated, you generally want to hydrate them. So, luckily I was with a bunch of people, the program coordinator, my Spanish teacher, my host mom and my friend who’s a US doctor, and they were all for me trying to drink some Gatorade.

I also found out that here you don’t even need a doctor to diagnose yourself, you actually can just walk into a laboratorio and say you want to do an análisis de heces. Anyhow, the test came back positive for amoebas.

Though apparently to be sure that I have pathogenic Entamoeba histolytica and not its non-disease-causing relatives, I also need more tests that I can’t get done here. But I started a course of flagyl and am now getting better. Never have I been so excited to have a solid bowel movement. Yay!

Hospital Andino

I was able to make it to a couple days of clinic. I was at a hospital called Hospital Andino, which has 3 sections to it. A regular medicine section, an Alternative medicine side and an Andean medicine side. I mostly saw the latter 2.

Please note, the following pictures are courtesy of Bo Cuevas.

Homeopathic/Alternative medicine mostly relies on various “natural” medications to treat illness and they in general say they like to treat the whole person instead of just the disease. I think there are definitely merits to the homeopathic approach, and the patients I saw really felt that they were better treated by this kind of medicine. However, what kept irritating me was that the doctor couldn’t explain how many of his cures worked and said it was very American of me to want to know how (which is true.)

The Andean medicine clinic was a very interesting experience. I watched a bunch of limpias (cleansings).

They involved running a candle and a wooden stick over your body and lighting them and then reading the flames to diagnose your disease. Then there was lots of calisthenics type exercises. There was also hitting you with plants all over your body (some of which cause extreme urticaria, kinda like poison ivy), and then the yachuk (medicine man), would spit on you with some sort clear liquid. There was this pot that kept fuming incense that he would run over your body.

He also breathed fire at one point by blowing lighter fluid onto your candle/stick of wood.

He also used “natural medications.” (As I side note, I really dislike it when people use the word “natural” to imply that something can only benefit and cannot harm. Many “natural” compounds can be incredibly potent and dangerous.)

The most interesting thing to me was the prescription for the next limpia (you have to keep coming back). So, he prescribed about 7 different types of plants and then you have to bring with you 2 more candles and 1 cuy (guinea pig), of solid color. I asked why it had to be solid color- the yachuk said the multi-color ones didn’t work.

Solid color only, please.

Though I did not personally see this, at the second limpia the cuy is waved over your body, then dissected open and its innards reveal your disease.

Certainly an interesting experience.

Carnival

The other big thing going on this week was Carnival. Time to go a little crazy before Lent happens. Here that crazy manifests as water fights in the streets, as well as egging, talc-ing and spraying people with foam canisters.

It sounds like fun, until you’re walking down the street and someone pours a bucket of questionably clean water on you. I didn’t mind being sprayed by little kids so much, but it was not fun getting the foam spray in your mouth and eyes…

Baños

I was feeling better by the weekend and really wanted to head to this town called Baños (Baths) which is famous for natural hot water springs, waterfalls, hiking, rafting, etc. I opted to do canyoning (which was awesome!) and involves repelling off waterfalls!

The hardest part was the hike to the waterfalls, which though not very long was really steep, and at that point I was still only subsisting off of Gatorade and the occasional cracker.

wild orchid

Lots of people at the hot springs

On the way back to Riobamba, we stopped in Ambato, which is famous for its flowers and plants

Awesome park bench

Mural made from seeds and flowers

I can’t believe I’m already starting my last week here! Time really flies.