After a very proud 7 months of being free from any serious stomach bugs, I came down with terrible stomach pains at the beginning of this week. After a sleepless night with frequent trips to the bathroom, my house mom called in a doctor to see me. Yes, they do that here for only about $20 US. Oddly enough, by that time I was feeling much better, just tired and weak. He didn´t do any tests but made sure I was ok, assigned some meds for pain and what not and left. That night I started feeling bad again so my house mom decided we needed to go for blood and stool tests. 8AM the next morning I had blood drawn for 3 or 4 tests. By 5pm we had results. Again, costing only about $13. Really a waste of money to have insurance down here! But anyway, the tests showed no stomach bugs, THANK GOD, but a high white blood cell count. Meaning that I had an infection in my intestines.
So basically I laid around and slept for 2 days, didn´t eat a whole lot and by Wednesday I was back to life as normal. But it has been a very odd week! I am very happy to be eating normally (after having a somewhat restricted diet for the week), feeling strong, and alert.
This week also contained a ¨surprise¨ party for my spanish tutor and a going away dinner for another one of my teams interns. This morning I took two of our newer interns to Viviana´s physical therapy as they are psychology majors and were curious as to what kind of therapy she had.
This afternoon I began a log that I will continue to update every month on our kids. Simply put, its a height and weight chart. But I am trying to make it as fun as I can by using fun stickers, asking questions about what they want to do when they are grown up, and possibly building on those answers in the future. What did you want to be when you were 9 years old? I think I wanted to be a nurse! The chart will be used for when the kids go to the doctors so we can give a month by month history of their growth. I believe it will also help us to see if they are having a stomach issue if they are not growing and gaining each month. Many of our kids came for very malnurished situations and are still on the mend. I look forward to getting to know our kids more personally in this way as well.
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2 comments:
Hi Kim,
I lived in Bolivia for 2 years when I was 25 to 27. I ended up marring a Bolivan (8 years this Sep.!)
He wants us to return to live in Bolivia for the next few years starting this Oct. or Nov. Reasoning that cost of living in the US has gone up so much in the last year.
I really want to know has the cost of living in Bolivia gone up much in the last year? We have little savings and will need to find jobs down there and support ourselves and our 2 little kids.
Our trip to see his family in 2004 I got very sick too and and it only cost me about $10 for a trip to the clinic, an IV and antibiotics. So it sounds like it has gone up.
Do you know the price of gas? Is food going up?
I would really appriciate your answers to these questions.
God Bless,
Wendy
Hi Wendy,
The cost of living has gone up some but I´m afraid I can´t help you too much. I´ve been here for 7 months only. Recently all the restaurants have increased prices by a few b´s, I know bread has gone up to like 70 or 80 centavos, a lot of places that used to take US $ now only take B´s because the exchange rate is just over 7b´s to $1. I don´t drive here so I´m cluelss as to gas but I can probably find out. Oh, and my doctor costs $20 cause he came to the house, it would have been a ton cheaper if I had gone to the clinic. But the 4 tests did cost $13. Over all, it will always be cheaper here then in the states and I´m sure you know that. if you want you can leave me your email address too. Hope I can help!
Kim
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