Above me, my friends were asking things in Spanish. I had enough wits about me to picture myself as an injured football player who had just caught the game-winning touchdown pass. The chihuahua was okay.
"Get away from me," I said in English. Spanish and pain didn't seem to go together. After a few moments of silence, they supported me into the car and we drove home after I brushed off suggestions to go to the emergency room.
The trip to Hospital National came the next day. I'd been to the hospital's emergency room a couple of times for rehydration IVs and had always enjoyed my time there. The doctor's are calm and it has proved a good solution for me as I lapse in my health insurance coverage. For $120, I shared a curtained room with a wonderful lady, was x-rayed and received a week's worth of muscle relaxers.
Although not dislocated, the pain persisted into this month helping me to understand the moodiness of chronic pain sufferers. At Dany's suggestion, I went to the Da Cheng Centro de Terapia y Curacion in El Dorado. The offices were brightly lit with several attendance rooms. Two doctors scurried back and forth between the rooms which intermittently emitted loud sounds of pain relief. One doctor was tall and lanky of indeterminate age, a calm and serious expression on his face. His hand's hung at his side, locked in relaxed poses, as if resting from channeling energy. The other doctor bore a strong resemblance to a 1940s housewife and had a reassuring smile. Both wore smart white doctor's coats.
When it was my turn, the energy channeler nodded at me. After a quick analysis, I took my shirt off and laid down on the papered exam table. Without any notice, he began pricking me with needles and applying small suction cups, sucking my arm fat and muscles into little bulbs. And then he left and I wondered when he would be back. The 1940s doctor came in awhile later to increase the suction and then she left promising she'd be back in five minutes. My arm, back and shoulder were immobilized so I had trouble turning around to check on their whereabouts. Blood trickled and formed rings around the rims of the cups.
There were two more rounds of pricking and suction followed by the application of medicinal patches. I was ushered out, given natural tablets that smelled like the medicinal patches, and given instructions to go easy and stay out of air-conditioning for the next two weeks. I've yet to research what they actually did to me or what is in the natural tablets, but the shoulder seems to be doing much better.
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