Another Day in the Hospital

Filipe and Samuel left this morning for Yapacani. Erselia took the micro from Patujusal to Yapacani. From there Samuel would return home while Filipe and Erselia returned to Santa Cruz. Although I arrived at the hospital at 9, I was informed that I could not sit with Jhonny since I was not his family. Instead I purchased the items for the anesthesiologist. That took until 12:30! Of course, another list was added. I fed Jhonny his lunch and had to leave until 3.

It was good to see the change in Jhonny. He was able to sit up for about 30 seconds before he would loose his balance. That doesn’t seem like much but yesterday he did not have the energy to lift his body off the bed. His appetite returned and he ate all his lunch – after I went across the street to get a spoon so that he didn’t have to eat with his fingers. His speech has returned and the constant questions were "What time is it?" and "When is Daddy coming back?" However, his depth perception has been affected so he has trouble getting the food to his mouth and when he pointed at something, he could not do it.

Another medical system quirk. One has to pay to use blood and it is not cheap by Bolivian standards -- 250 bolivianos or a little over $60 a unit. But before the surgery can be done, one of the parents much donate the units back into the bank. So we purchased 3 units of blood and Filipe must donate 3 units back. He did not do that before he left so surgery is delayed one day.

The items I purchased today were much more expensive than those purchased yesterday. One realizes how the poor simply cannot afford to have these type of operations performed. I changed $500 this morning and the majority of it was used to purchase medication and supplies.