joint pain, no sleep, hospitals, oh my.

The university hospital in Loja is pretty nice. I know that from my visit with an internal medicine doctor last friday. I was sore on Thursday, couldn´t fall asleep on Thursday night because my joints hurt, cried a lot, eventually woke up on Friday and from all of the pain I was practically unable to move at all. I got out of bed successfully on the fifth try, walked like a zombie to my bedroom door, yelled for my roommates help, went to the hospital, saw a doctor, had an xray of my hands done and blood drawn, was diagnosed with unspecified rheumatoid arthritis, received a prescription for non-FDA approved arthritis medicine, got home, and stayed in bed for a day and a half. I started feeling better on Saturday afternoon. I was able to put pressure on my wrists a little, could move enough to take a shower, and walk down the stairs without crying. Thankfully it´s only been getting better since then. Today, I feel almost back to normal. I still have pain in my ankles, wrists, elbows, knees, and fingers, but nothing like I have experienced in the past few days. I still have to go to the hospital and find out the results of the tests that were done, which I am nervous about. Even though I speak Spanish well, I am not fluent. Even when I was at the hospital on Friday I had a bit of trouble with all the directions I was given, probably because I was focused mostly on how much pain I was in, but still. Blood test results in Spanish? I probably wouldn´t understand them in English anyway. Really, I just want to hear that everything is fine and that maybe I was just really exhausted or something. We will see.

Seriously though, it is really frustrating how often I am ill here. It makes me want to just jump on a plane and fly home. I am grateful though that seeing a doctor, getting a prescription, an xray, and blood tests only cost me $70. At home without insurance, that would have been 8 times more surely.


Happy Monday!