A very late February Newsletter - Kevin in Uruguay

I am, quite sadly, almost 2 weeks late with my February update. It has been an incredibly busy few weeks around here, though – Mate Monday´s latest few entries should tell you quite a bit about what I´ve been up to for the past while. This month, I am not going to be using the Franklin´s Choice format for my newsletter entry; the prompt wasn´t a bad one, by any means, but I have other things on my mind – one episode that has only casually been mentioned in Mate Mondays.

On the second night of the Minnesota group´s stay with us in Montevideo, Daniela (our doctor/friend/neighbor), KD, Dorothea and I were sitting around the church office after hours, working on a photo show about the kid´s camp from a few weeks back. We were talking, laughing at Dorothea´s playing the Las Divinas song from Patito Feo, and in general having a good, laid-back time. And then Amanda entered the room. Her grandmother, Jean, was feeling very ill and disoriented, and Amanda asked if there was a doctor nearby who could take a look at her. Daniela, of course, volunteered, and I went along as the translator.

It was not hard to tell from the look in Amanda´s eyes that something more than just a stomach ache was bothering her grandmother, and as soon as we walked into their room (they were staying in Carlos and Carla´s apartment, which is also in the church building), it was obvious that Jean was not well at all. She seemed incredibly disoriented and dizzy, her speech was slurred, and she could barely move or control the right side of her body. I´ve taken enough First Aid to have been able to recognize immediately what was likely happening to Jean – those are the classic signs of a stroke. Jean was very obviously worried; she knew First Aid, too. Amanda was worried. For that matter, I was worried, but I didn´t show it. Daniela very calmly began her investigation, and so I translated for Jean. I never thought my Spanish skills would be use to ask a 75 year old woman if she´s been having regular bowel movements, or have to say in Spanish that among her medications is one for vaginal dryness.

After a basic examination, Daniela decided that a hospital visit was in order – it didn´t seem as if Jean´s condition was serious, but neither was it something treatable in the “take two of these and call me in the morning” manner. Jean´s blood pressure was skyrocketing, though, and so Daniela gave her a blood pressure med – mostly nerves, we assumed. From there, it was time to make hospital arrangements, and then the fun began. We had to use Jean´s travel medical insurance, and in this delightful system, you end up making about 7 phone calls, including one to Jamaica, just to talk to a live person. In the end, after all kinds of going back and forth between the phone downstairs and the upstairs bedroom, an insurance agent from the U.S. called Daniela´s cell phone...to talk to Jean. Yes, needing to talk to the patient is ALWAYS the best way to authorize emergency medical care – stroke patients are always lucid, happy, and able to share a description of their conditions with a penpusher back in the United States. Fortunately, by the time Poindexter finished grilling her, she felt better, looked better, and didn´t need a hospital visit after all – our best guess is that she had an extremely minor stroke (there´s a proper medical name for them, but I´ve forgotten it), and once it passed, she was back to normal.
Daniela, however, was livid over the episode – in Uruguay, if you´re sick, you go to the hospital. They treat you, and then they ask about insurance, and since the state (cash-poor as it is) pays for a reasonable chunk of medical expenses, people without the financial means to pay don´t have to. It made no sense to her that someone having a stroke should have to physically get permission from an insurance agent on another continent to receive medical treatment.

It doesn´t make much sense to me, either. If a country that meets at least some official definitions of “third world” can provide adequate, treat-first-and-ask-questions-later medical service, then why can´t the world´s wealthiest nation find a way to take better care of its citizens? When did we decide to let soulless corporations, who could care less about the individual so long as they get their money, run virtually everything in our country? What would have happened if Jean had died because Poindexter was in the bathroom for 5 minutes too long before returning our call, or if we had just gone to the hospital without authorization and the insurance company used this as grounds not to cover her treatment, thus stiffing her with a huge bill? 2008 is an election year; it´s time to start finding some answers to these questions, and an acceptable answer is not “stay the course” this time around.

Soapbox speeches and residual anger aside, the God of the Cross was there that night, in the midst of pain and anxiety. God was there, calming us – we watched as Jean got better, as her blood pressure went down, as she began to talk and think clearer. We watched as Amanda managed to hold in her own fears and be a strong, calming presence for her grandmother. We watched as Daniela and I tried simultaneously to keep it together and communicate in adverse conditions, even though we were both tired and frazzled. The next day, after Jean and Amanda got some sleep, things went back to normal – they re-joinec group activities in the afternoon, and went and did everything the rest of the group did for the rest of the week.

I think about my position in it all – the translator, the person having to bridge a communication gap rain, shine, or stroke – and I think about how far I´ve come in 6 months. I couldn´t have done this in September. I would have been almost as clueless as the two non-Spanish speakers were. However, just for being here, for having ears and a mouth and a brain, I´ve learned Spanish, and something else along the way - that God gives us what we have, and what we need, and then finds ways to use us where we are. Maybe that´s my lesson of the year.