Around 10pm last night an elderly gent was deposited in the bed next to me. His blue and red swollen feet looked painful. His wife pitched up at 12:00 to tend to his needs. Here family replaces nurses. Why? Because there aren’t any nurses!

Well I’m writing this on the 7th as there was no way I could write yesterday as I was battling to remember my own name. I ended up getting little or no sleep in the night of the fifth. I was feeling pretty nauseas but people, patients, family or medical staff seem to have no regards for anyone. A solid wood door in the hallway bangs heavily with every gust of breeze. Visitors stand in the hallway holding conversations until 3:30 in the morning with no attempt to lower their voices. The elderly couple in my room took visitors and mobile phone calls at 12:30 am and the backward screech of raw metal on tiled floor as the ancient chairs were moved around pierced my skull. At 3:30am my fever worsened and I began to sake. By 5:30am was feeling awful and shaking uncontrollably, even getting angry with the old couple who’d been loaned a Nokia mobile with an alarm set to 5:15am. I explained in Spanish after they tried to answer the call with ´Hola, hola´, that it was an alarm and they needed to disable it but when the alarm had rung for the 11th time (I’d started counting) and they still answering the dam thing with ´hola, hola´, only louder, I was beginning to loose my rag.

By 8am I’d slept little and my shakes had become worse, I felt so cold. A female physician popped her head round the door but didn’t come back. At 9am 7-8 physicians entered the room discussing the symptoms of me and the old guy, great someone will notice my state and do something, they even sat on my bed, I could barely talk but I figured my bed doing an impression of a washing machine would do the job. Nope, inconvenienced by the shaking bed they simply stood. 5 mins later and in spite of my best efforts to get attention they all left. I shouted “Chio” in angry sarcasm, two of the dozy bitches even replied! I was now battling rolling waves of nausea, the idea of retching like I had a few days ago was unbearable. I felt so alone, so helpless. Finally the nausea won and I threw my body sideways, head and shoulders over the bed and retch like a dog. I wasn’t sick; there was nothing to bring up. As the heaving continued I was only evacuating the thin yellow bile from the deepest part of my stomach. I felt exhausted. At lest the shaking had stopped and now I was burning up.

The elderly lady called for assistance and 10 mins later a nurse/Doctor popped her head round the door, took a look and left. An hour later a cleaner came in to clear the mess. My God, what do you have to do here to get attention…..die!! I yelled angrily in Spanish ´this place is crazy´! The old lady went to get more help and an hour later a miserable lady I’d seen twice before came into the room. I asked for an intravenous drip, I know I was badly dehydrated as I’d lost so much last night and my bed was like a swimming pool. She obliged. However, things were about to go downhill. Seconds after she’d left the room my temperature sky-rocketed, it was as if I could feel myself boiling. I was panicky and could feel myself passing out. In my panic I’d decided that it was the drip – she’d put it in wrong or something. I was trying feebly to pull it out. I think the old lady was trying to stop me and calling for help. That was all I remember, I passed out. I came round briefly and remember being fanned by her with a magazine and then I was gone again. I came round and the miserable lady with her pearl-pointed spectacles, complete with dangling neck strap, was checking the drip and reparing the tape I’d tried to tear off. The drip was helping and when Lisa came in to the room my temp was almost normal.

When Lisa came in it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I needed help getting to the bathroom as my legs were on holiday. By mid-afternoon I was being wheeled downstairs, the medical consensus here was that I needed another chest X-ray. I wanted to shout its fucking malaria…..my breathing is fine!´

By mid to late afternoon a red-haired Doctor I’d seen before can into the room. “Tenemos una diagnosis”, we have a diagnosis, she said. Unbeknownst to me whilst I was out cold this morning they’d drawn more blood. The blood lab was now open and it had been tested. “Es malaria” she said triumphantly. Funny, Lisa had been saying it was malaria since Friday! However, it’s great because at least we know what we’re dealing with. She drew blood from Lisa and sent it off for testing. We are hoping to get the results today (7th). Mind you, it’s now 5pm so it looks unlikely. My red-haired, white-robed Doctor explained they still needed to determine which malaria it was and without that they can’t commence treatment.

Lisa left around 5pm looking the worst for wear, even though we came to the hospital emergency room together and with the same symptoms, she’s received no medical care at all. She was ´getting by´ on antibiotics and paracetamol that I was prescribed by a doctor who was called by the restaurant last week. Maurico, a very helpful young medic and who had a little English was me twice in the afternoon and assured me that we’d know the specific malaria and start treatment today.

The problem now is simple. The can’t order the medication until my lab results tell the
strain of malaria. We’ve been promised the results for today….guaranteed. It’ll take one full day for the drugs to arrive. Its now 5:45pm and I’m feeling fucking suicidal as I’ve just been told that my results won’t arrive until tomorrow, which means the drugs won’t get here until the following day!!!!!! AAAAHHHGGGG!! We then still have to try and get Lisa’s results and treatment.

There is absolutely no organization here….not even bed charts, so one physician can pick up where the other leaves off. There’s not a picture on the wall and we’ve got elephant cockroaches in the bathroom. I’ve managed to get to the window twice. I was desperate to look out and remind myself that there is another world out there to return to.

After thought for the evening – Warning, not for the faint-hearted……The old guy I’m sharing the room with does little but grin, groan, burp and fart. Right now he’s in the loo, the doors half ajar and from the noises he’s making he’s giving birth to Tony Blair’s evil twin and after will be in need of anal sutchering. The noises are incredible.

I was ready to knife someone this morning. With the old guy next to me starting the morning where hed finished off last night with a anal chorus that a ‘Royal Guard Trumpeter’ would have been pround, by 10:00am I was feeling the worse for wear, but thank god the Naseau and endless vomiting hasn’t returned, the thought of that scares the crap out of me.

Maurico had come in to see me around 11:00am, his forced and inconvincing smile as he entered the room was a bad sign. “Do with know the strain” I asked nervously? “No! We will know tomorrow”, Maurico answered like it was obvious. That was I lost it...”What do you mean tomorrow? You said today. This place crazy, it doesn’t work. How can it be tomorrow…it’s always sodding tomorrow…”and so on and so forth. Unlike normal when an outburst might make me feel better, this just left me feeling sick and breathless. Lisa had just entered the room during my ‘toy throwing’ spat. She’d got the jist of what was going on. The rad haired ‘blood specialist’ that had now joined Maurico just stood there…blank. The idea of this place for another day was unbearable.

Maurico did his best to defend the hospital but it was pretty useless I’d turned off my ‘selective hearing’. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything he told me at that given point I figured why bother he’s only going to lie to my. With Hiensight, that was grossly unfair. Maurico so far has ben the only one to keep me in the picture and has done his best to reassure me…god know s I’m thankful for his English.

Well, several hours later and to our complete suprise Maurico returned, the smile on his face this time being a somewhat more genuine version. “We have the results”, He stated triumphantly. “What” I retauted. “ You said it was impoosible for the results today”. “Yes but your blood is very heavily loaded with Plasmodium Vivax, the result came through quickly.” He offered. I’ve never been so delighted to know why I was ill.

Anyway long storey sideways. By mid afternoon, we were clutching a presecription for anti-malaria drugs and having wished my but talented room-mate well I’d been discharged. The feeling of relief was immnense. This place had for some reason really gotten to me. I was practically in tears with relief as Lisa helped my with the last set of stairs and finally the glass doors to freedom swung open and we were outide.

I’m not going to write much more. Right now we’re back at the Hotel San Martin, trying to sort out the where’s and how’s of getting the medication.

We chatted live on air for about 10 minutes. I was amazed how drained I felt post interview. The effort and concentration had wiped me out