Netflix and Paracetemol

In July my husband went to visit his family in Hidalgo del Parral while I was in Missouri for my son’s birthday. A couple of days after he came home, he woke up and was unable to walk. He had excruciating pain in both feet, but no other symptoms. I was still in Kansas City at this point and when he told me over the phone, I wasn’t too concerned. From what he described, I thought he probably had heel spurs and that they could give him cortisone injections at IMSS. I know how painful they are as I have them myself from time to time but at least there is a simple solution. I told him to just rest up and we would visit the doctor when I got home.

When his vacation ended he hobbled to the maquila where he was immediately sent to the infirmary and then the hospital. He had a series of visits to the hospital and on July 27^th the doctor gave him the diagnosis I had suspected. Espolón. They told him that they would need to take x-rays to confirm the diagnosis and the first appointment available was on August 16^th, 3 weeks away. I was appalled that it would take so long but with no money to go to a regular doctor, our hands were tied. As we waited impatiently for his appointment date he was required to visit the IMSS hospital once a week to renew his “incapacidad.” It’s basically a doctor’s note stating that he is unable to work. He has to turn it into his boss each week so that he doesn’t lose his position at the factory.

He went to his first few appointments without me and when I found out that by his 5^th visit the doctors had yet to examine his feet I literally lost all my marbles and decided I would have to start going with him. Of course I demanded answers from the doctors and insisted they do a more thorough examination and not just look him up and down and send him to the scripts line. My efforts were not rewarded. When I realized they really didn’t know what’s wrong with him all I could do was march my defeated butt down to the prescription line like everyone else.

My purse full of Ray's medications that made me feel like a pill-popping crack whore.

His x-rays were finally done and it turns out he doesn’t have bone spurs. His blood work came back normal ruling out gout and the like. Upon reading his test results the doctor just shrugged his shoulders and threw his hands in the air. “¿Pues… quien sabe?” Apparently he’s a medical mystery! So we’ve been spending every Friday evening at the IMSS hospital. Each time he sees a different doctor or nurse or whatever the hell they are and each time they look at him like he has 3 eyes and then proceed to prescribe various medications. Because his doctor changes every week and there is no apparent system which shows who’s prescribing what, he is getting a cluster-fuck of medications which we then have to take home and WebMD and Google Translate our asses off until we can figure out what can be combined and what shouldn't even be given to a lab rat.

Just trying to make some sense of all the recetas and come up with a schedule for everything

We finally got an appointment with an orthopedic specialist at a different hospital. That appointment is on Monday morning and we are praying for some answers. In the meantime I felt so bad that my poor husband is stuck in the house all day with his feet up that I finally signed up for Netflix Mexico so that he would have something to entertain him. For anyone who is hesitant, let me just tell you, it’s awesome! It’s 99 pesos a month and you get tons of movies and a bunch of American TV shows to choose from. You can watch in English or Spanish audio and English or Spanish subtitles. My favorite part is the TV shows of course. They have several seasons of The Real Housewives of Orange County that I can’t wait to see and tons of other series that I have always wanted to watch but never had the time for. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Dexter! They even have every season of 90210. Enough said, right? I knew it was worth the $7.62 US when I was 7 episodes deep in La Reina del Sur before I realized that I still hadn’t brushed my teeth and I wasn’t wearing any pants.

Stuck on Netflix.

I’ll let you all know how it goes on Monday. Please cross your fingers for us! Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!