There is good news, and there is bad news. I was released from the hospital today, ending my three-night imprisonment. The bad news? The doctors are still awaiting lab results, and those reuslts won’t be available until Saturnday morning, so I have to spend three MORE nights in Xela before I can go home. I should try to think of it as a “forced vacation,” I guess.
As for what’s wrong with me, the jury is still out. The doctor came in this morning to examine me again, and the conversation went something like this (translated into English, for your convenience):
Doctor’s Exam, Morning #4:
“Hmm, I see you still have a little fever. Anything else?” the doctor asks, as she starts checking my blood pressure.
“Well, I still have headaches and my throat is a little sore. My biggest problem is boredom; I’m going nuts in here,” I reply.
She nods, ignoring my last complaint. “Well, all of your tests are still negative. We really don’t know what’s wrong with you, so we’re running a throat culture and additional blood tests to be sure. Those results won’t be available until Saturday.” No no no no no no no
“But I think we can let you go today, if you stay in town a few days and come back here Saturday morning for a consultation,” she finished.
YES! wait…. I can’t go home until Sunday? Argh. Then she let the air out of the sphygmomanometer. “It seems your blood pressure is high.” No shit, Sherlock, I’m SICK! I think to myself. “Do you eat a lot of salt? You need to cut salt out of your diet.”
I took a deep breath to control my annoyance. I KNOW my normal blood pressure is within healthy limits, as I’ve been passing FAA flight physicals for my pilot’s license since 1998. “Well, we don’t use salt when we cook. At all. When we take food to the neighbors, they complain and add it,” I responded with a fake smile. Apparently this annoyed Emily too, as she takes pride in making quality, healthy food. She was thinking something far ruder: “If you want to cut salt out of his diet, you can stop feeding him the crappy hospital food here!” Yeah, everything except the orange juice was salty like bar peanuts.
The doctor placed her exam articles in her lab coat and shook my hand, congratulating me on my partial recovery and subsequent escape from the hospital. “And when we meet on Saturday, we can talk about which blood pressure medication to start you on.”
Whatever.
The nurses gave me some painkillers (Naproxen this time) then we made our escape. We dropped our backpacks at our favorite hostel, then headed straight for Casa Babylon, a restaurant that serves the only GOOD burgers in Xela. I had a cheeseburger, chips, and a brownie with ice cream. Emily had a giant spinache salad and a big plate of California rolls. Basically, we pigged out. It felt good to finally eat something substantial after being sick for a week.
Hopefully, this stupid drama is now all but over. I will send out a note on Saturday to let everyone know how the tests came out. Besides that, I will get back to normal posts (if there is such a thing).