Out Here in Mexico, Chapter 8: It is the Gringos Who Bring the Sickness Here by risa
It is the Gringos Who Bring the Sickness Here
by MK
After my morning session on the last day my health started to deteriorate rapidly. Nausea. Cramps. Some fever. Finally, a tingling sensation in my arms, legs, and face, as if I had slept on them. I started to lose feeling in my appendages.
I told the Germans that I did not feel OK and the cabana guy drove me up to the clinica in the village. There were only two nurses there. They don´t really care about making you feel safe or good in a poor country like this. The drastically lower collective value of any person´s life became crystal clear. I was horrified. They didn´t really give a shit if I made it or not. Just another binche gringo surfista making their job suck more than it did 10 minutes ago. I wanted my family and I felt really alone.
I was lying on a bed in back moving my appendages in hope of maintaining feeling. They decided that they thought my blood sugar was low and that I should have a shot of glucose. I asked the nurse if the needle was clean and new and she stammered out that, ‘It is the gringos who bring the sickness here!’ then plunged the needle into my arm. I let out a whimpering moan. I was not being very brave.
I lay there waiting for an improvement while I could here the nurse talking to a doctor somewhere else over some type of radio.
I seemed to get maybe a little bit better and they seemed to not know what the hell else to do so I left and went back to the beach.
Half an hour later I was worse and the cabana guy, Victor, decided to drive me to a more established clinica with a real doctor in a town about 40 minutes away. I vomited out the window of the truck on the way. I looked down at the waves and the rugged jungle coastline as the sun was going down and actually thought: I am so glad I saw this if this is it.
The doctor decided that I had a rare form of food poisoning that results in a fever and my other symptoms. He shot me in the rear with an antibiotic, gave me some electrolyte fluid and fever reducer, and off I went feeling better and spent. I felt great the next day, probably thanks to the drugs he gave me, and hopped a ride, then a bus back north to work.
In true Mexican fashion, the bus died en route to Puerto Vallarta, and I had to find a clinica where a nurse could give me my twice-daily backside injection. It didn´t cost a dime.
I made it back to the resort at 4 in the morning the night before my first class, and rallied through the next day on pure adrenalin and happiness to be alive.
Maybe the craziest surf trip ever.
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