Experiencing the Best of Mexican Medicine

Good Idea: Go to Mexico and experience a different culture.
Bad Idea: Live out of a tent and eat raw fish.

Good Idea: Drink lots of water and maintain hygiene.
Bad Idea: Bath in a lake and become hopelessly dehydrated.

Good Idea: Visit a well known doctor and receive treatment immediately.
Bad Idea: Try to wait out the sickness eating nothing but Jell-O for 5 days, still living out of a tent and getting hopelessly sick throughout the night.

Should I continue with my list or just conclude that hind sight is 20/20 and in the throes of what might be the worse sickness in your life -yes, this even surpasses the 104F fever of youth when in delirium I was subjected by older brother and friends to a PBS´ marathon of Red Dwarf- clear thinking somehow isn´t an option. However, after day 5 and the incessant prompting of my friends, I make my way into Santa Maria and to the hospital for treatment.

I arrive and am placed in a chair by a vending machine. ¡Toma Sus Pastillas! -Take your pills! Courtesy of the government of the state of Nayarit. For about $3.00 US, I can choose from a variety of vending machine medicines to self medicate any illness. Unfortunately, every package looks the same and the medicine names are generic and mysterious. This vending machine has gotten me out of nothing, I still have to visit the doctor.

I am called up to the counter and am asked questions in Spanish that I am having a hard time answering. What is my name? "Katie Trembley. No, with a ´T´... I´ll just write it." What is wrong with me? "I can´t eat, I feel sick." Why doesn´t the education system in the United States teach practical words that one will actually use upon visiting a foreign country, like vomit, diahrea, dehydration, and death bed?

The interrogation stops and I am called into a side room by the same receptionist who appears to also be a doctor. At first it was hard to tell her true identity, as she was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but she puts on a white lab coat before laying me on an examination table and poking at my stomach. Stomach infection! she declares. I am informed that this happens to many travelers with climate and food change. She prescribes me three different medicines, gives me the complete dose of one, charges me 25 pesos, or $2.50 US, and sends me on my way.

After stopping by the pharmacy for the two other pills, my friend and I sit at a restaurant while I prepare to take my first does of Mexican medication. One of Type A- three times a day. Two of Type B- three times a day. Two of Type C- three times a day. As I hold a handful of 5 pills I realize that I will be taking 15 mysterious white pills per day. For a complete medical treatment of under $5.00 US, you can bet these pills are not sugar coated. The whole cocktail goes down with water, tasting very ugly. I order rice, already feeling sick but also optimistic about my condition. The first bite touches my lips and I´m off to the bathroom. Water, pills, and not much else reappear and I am miserable on another bathroom floor. I try to eat at the prompting of my friend, but after three trips to the bathroom, I finally give up and stay wrapped around the toilet.

"Am I pregnant?" the cook asks. She is an older señora appearing to be in her early 60´s. My friend answers no for me. "Would I like a stomach massage?" Barely aware of my surroundings I think, Sure, why not?

The señora has been taught the art of healing through massage and would like to help me. I follow her through the kitchen to a little room by the refrigerator. She takes off her apron and clears away papers, small toys, and not-so-clean looking clothing from atop a massage table and asks me to lay down. Mexico is so weird, I think, as the restaurant-cook-turned-healer applies pleasant smelling oil to my stomach. I am burning a fever and nearing delirium, so I just lay back as if my current situation is normal. The señora claims that I have many bad places in my stomach and begins to work them out. I am thankful for a place to rest and can not turn down a stomach massage, regardless of how random it appears. Five feet away, rice boils away on the stove.

The señora has me turn over, cracks my back and invites me to rest. I am told the bathroom is near, should I need it, and that I can take as much time as necessary. I fall asleep, already feeling like I am in the midst of a strange dream.

Some unknown amount of time later, I awake to the heart-warming clank and rattle of kitchen sounds. I´m still in the back of a Mexican restaurant sleeping on a massage table. I´m still terribly sick. In a last ditch attempt to make my exotic year of travel through Mexico a success, I decide to return to the hospital.

The doctor lays me back on the table and tells me that I need to eat. I hate needles, but I barely flinch or move my arm as the doctor injects me with some unknown substance. I am left to rest for several minutes, but the injection doesn´t seem to be helping and I start to notice the Grim Reaper smiling through the window. Am I to die in Mexico listening to a mariachi wail away in Spanish and thinking how every one of these mariachi songs sounds exactly like the other? I am shuffled to a room where the doctor-receptionist prepares an IV for my very small and dehydrated veins. The task is difficult and I now have another doctor digging a needle around my arm in search of my vein after failing with both hands and my wrist. After another failed attempt, I decide that through adrenaline alone I am feeling better and decide to return to the lake and my diet of Jell-O to wait for death.

Today, I experienced the best of Mexican medicine old and new. I´m curious to see if either has an impact on my health.