Hello, my name is Jorge and I will be your driver today

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On Sunday afternoon we went into town to find a doctor. After all the parents took turns looking over him with well-intentioned but completely unknowing eyes, we decided to take Truman in to get looked at by an actual doctor. That morning he had developed very distinct red dots on his upper thighs and face. When we saw the first one we thought perhaps they were mosquito or spider bites, but when they became more and more numerous, we began to get worried. After he woke up from his afternoon nap, he had rashes in addition to the dots.

All sorts of possible illnesses started popping into our minds, beginning with chicken pox. I have terrible memories of itchy, painful pox all over my body when I was small and I was really hoping that Truman would not be patient #0 for chicken pox in a house of nine children under ten years old. Truman, like Henry and Addi, had been vaccinated for chicken pox, but we weren't sure how reliable those things were. Plus, there had been a case of chicken pox at ICS (the kids' school) earlier in the week. And, if I'm being completely honest, having one or more of my children coming down with chicken pox was going to seriously increase the amount of parental work I was going to have to do on my vacation. More responsibility on vacation es no bueno.

Much of the parental diagnosis was taking place on the patio by the pool. Since we aren't medical professionals, there is no stigma with diagnosing children's illnesses while drinking wine. Estamos en España, after all.  Depending on which mobile network provider we each use, we either got no service at the vacation house, or extremely little service with almost no data. I am one of the lucky/unlucky (depending on your point of view) ones without any service at all. We are so used to being able to look up any fact in an instant that when we cannot we feel a little lost. In this particular case, we needed the location and opening hours of all the hospitals and clinics nearby. Try asking Siri that when there is no internet connection; that lady becomes completely worthless. We also wanted to see pictures of chicken pox eruptions and meningitis spots so we could compare them with the marks on Truman.

Meningitis?

Yep, one of the parents mentioned meningitis and that immediately changed the urgency of the exercise from 'theoretical' to 'concerning'. Apparently in the UK they teach parents to check for meningitis by pressing a cold glass on the eruption and if the red color doesn't leave the skin, then it could be meningitis so rush to a hospital as soon as possible.

We weren't in the UK, but instead in an old rental house in a valley in southern Spain. Instead of a cold glass, we found a room temperature plastic cup. Not optimal conditions for a diagnosis but we tried anyway. After taking turns pressing the cup repeatedly against Truman's spots, we realized that the results to our hi-tech operation were inconclusive and we couldn't trust them either way.

Since the glass parlor trick failed us, we went back to our non existent data coverage. After several failed attempts to use the internet to find a doctor, we found a listing in a local tourism book for a hospital in the neighboring town of Iznájar. Since neither Jess nor I are proficient in Spanish, we took our friend Pascal with us to be our pseudo translator. Pascal is the same guy we took with us to write the contract when we bought Jess's Fiat. He's super handy. :)

The road from our valley into Iznájar takes you around the cliffs that surround Iznájar's signature feature, a large beautiful lake that was created by damning up a nearby river. The lake is absolutely gorgeous and there is no boat or people activity on it. The entire scene creates a very pretty vista as you drive into town.

The lake and bridge going into Iznájar.

The lake and bridge going into Iznájar.

Once we made it into Iznájar proper, we had to navigate the windy small town streets to find the hospital. Even though it was 4:00pm in the afternoon the streets were mostly deserted. After driving to the center of the city we began looking for a place to park. As is common (in my experience) every bit of on-street parking was occupied, so we drove until we found the familiar "P" sign indicating a parking lot. The parking sign had us drive down a steep one-way alley. I am so glad we switched out our large 7 seater van for a smaller minivan. The larger van would not have fit in the alley. Even with the smaller car I only had a 2-3 inches from my side mirrors to the alley walls. The entire time I was driving I was thinking What happens if this street is a dead-end? Driving down a tight alley is one thing, but reversing a quarter mile with no clearance would likely be impossible!

Trying not to scrape the side mirrors off the rental car.

Trying not to scrape the side mirrors off the rental car.

After we managed to park, we hiked back uphill (Truman refused to walk to Jess had to carry him up the hill) we found the hospital down a small side street. We knew it was the hospital because the entire street was filled with a large ambulance parked awkwardly out front. The door to the hospital was locked so we had to ring the bell. A woman came to the door and showed us to the deserted waiting room.

Where are all the patients? We are the only people in the hospital.

Where are all the patients? We are the only people in the hospital.

After a few moments, Jorge came out and we followed him into the examination room. He examined Truman and Pascal did all the translating for us. Jorge was cool as a cucumber throughout the entire examination, and gently nodded after each of Pascal's answers. Finally, he concluded that it wasn't life-threatening meningitis but insect bites, most likely fleas. It turns out that during the morning, Truman had been petting the mangy farm cats that live near the rental house.

Jorge wrote us a prescription for a few different medicines (some sort of steroid cream and a Tylenol equivalent, I think) and then came the moment I was dreading. He asked for our national health cards. Umm, yeah. We don't have those. Due to the fact that dealing with the government bureaucracy is a time and energy suck, we had been putting off registering with the local town hall and medical service which means, you guessed it, we did not have the medical cards to receive medical care. I had assumed that our best option was to try haggle and pay outright, and then find some way to get reimbursed for the doctor visit later.

After Pascal explained the situation to Jorge, he seemed completely uninterested in the details. He explained to Pascal that he's actually the ambulance driver and normally there is a lady that does the administration work.

The ambulance driver.

Oh well, estamos en España.

We asked where the pharmacy was located. He gave us approximate directions and sent us on our way. And yes, the woman locked the hospital door behind us.

The pharmacy was locked and the noise from the street party made using the intercom impossible.

The pharmacy was locked and the noise from the street party made using the intercom impossible.

We make it to the pharmacy and it's locked up tight. There is a sign that says if it's locked, ring the intercom. So we did. Or rather, Pascal did. Did I mention that there was some sort of afternoon street party going on? See those people sitting in the red Coca-Cola chairs behind Jess? They are sitting in the road drinking and eating tapas. Everyone was so loud that it wasn't really possible for Pascal to make himself understood on the intercom. The entire thing was absurdly comical.

A few minutes later, a young man shows up, unlocks the gate and allows us into the pharmacy. We give him our prescription and asks for our national health cards. Hmmm. Pascal launches into the same explanation that he gave Jorge and, equally unperturbed, the young man simply shrugs and rings up the medicine (it cost 17 euros by the way).

For all we know the young man was the local bartender who lost rock-paper-scissor when the foreigners wanted to go to the pharmacy. We didn't even want to ask.

That's Gross

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The other night I was in our bathroom getting ready for bed. For whatever reason, Truman was in there with me and, as kids do, was watching me without me realizing it. I was flossing my teeth when he surprised me with a question.

"Is that hair? he asked, referring to my dental floss.

"No" I chuckled, "it's dental floss."

"Eww! That's gross!"

Apparently 35 year olds and 4 year olds have different ideas about what is gross.

Weekend Recap

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It's Sunday night and I'm heading back to San Jose tomorrow. It's a real downer from a family perspective but it's definitely needed from a professional perspective. Oh well, life is full of trade-offs. We've got a big holiday coming up here in China and Jess has been planning a wonderful Japanese adventure for us. We're all pretty excited. I'll try to recap some of the things we've been up to this weekend. I have a few pictures from my iPhone but hopefully Jess will log on later and update this post with some good photos from her camera.

Weather We've had three days of absolutely gorgeous weather. I really enjoyed (most) of the weather last fall, and this year seems to be heading in the same direction. There are a lot of people hanging out outside soaking up the sun and the clean air. The pollution index has been between 30 and 75 all weekend (for reference, 30 is approximately 'normal' for most of the U.S.). I even managed to get a sunburn today. The sunburn isn't cool but that fact that it was clear enough for the sun to burn me says it was pretty darn nice. I've mentioned before about how my standards for "clear days" have really dropped since moving to Beijing, but it's days like today that make us realize what we've been missing.

Friday After work we got take-out from the new dumpling and noodle place that opened up near our house. Everyone we know that has eaten there raved about the food.It turns out they don't have the take-out process down pat. It took 45 minutes for them to make our food and in the end they forgot to give us half our order. The food was tasty, but they forgot my spicy pig tongue. I'm not a big bread/noodle guy so I was counting on the pig tongue dish for my dinner. We tried calling them to tell them they forgot half of our food but they only speak Chinese so they kept hanging up on us. Annoying. We'll give the place another try but we'll eat in next time.

Saturday

Adeline has gymnastics on Saturday mornings at 8:30am which is a little early for us since Saturday morning is typically our "lounge around and have a big breakfast" morning. Several of the Esmond kids came over to play and both Jess and I hit a charity book sale that was being held at a local school.

Xiao Guo came over to babysit so Jess and I could attend a dinner party at a friends house (yep, we took the motorcycle). The food was catered in by a local Chinese caterer and it was fantastic! The wine was excellent as well. :) We spent several hours chatting about all things Beijing and then headed home. Henry is still doing his "adolescent power-struggle" with Xiao Guo. He wouldn't listen or go to bed and so when we got home at 11:30pm he was sitting there on the couch with Xiao Guo. Jess and I don't really know how to fix it. Addi and Truman aren't having problems so we're not really sure what's going on.

Sunday

On Sunday's Henry has rugby practice at ISB so we all went there to watch him and also to let Addi play on the playground with her friends. Most of the families that were at the dinner party on Saturday night were at the school playgrounds enjoying the nice weather so we continued our conversations from the previous evening.

After rugby practice we had lunch at a western restaurant with the Showalters.  There were so many of us that we took the minivan and the motorcycle. It was nice but by the time we were leaving both family's kids were in need of naps and were starting to meltdown. After lunch we took naps and started preparing for the week ahead.

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It is official, my baby is crawling!!

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Truman took his first crawling "steps" this weekend and finally realized today that he can get where he wants to go! :)  It is so much fun to watch him learn and discover new things.  Henry and Addi are thrilled that he is getting so big.  They absolutely love playing with him and making him laugh.  They have both been encouraging him and following him around, crawling themselves.  It is so great to watch all three of them interact.  The little joys in life are so precious!!  I will try to post a video of him tomorrow.  :)