Clinica Cedcas

Last week, Alexander began complaining of a headache. He wasn't sure if it was a wisdom tooth coming in or what, but each day around noon, his head would really start hurting. He isn't a complainer, so on day three, I said, do you want me to call a dentist and he said yes. Hmmmm. How do you find a dentist? in a foreign country?I'm usually pretty picky about finding a good dentist. Well, I asked the people in the office of the kids school, and they gave us a number, of a clinic called CEDCAS. So, with a leap of faith, I called this clinic. They said that we could bring him in as soon as we could. Joe took Alexander to the clinic. They asked for ID, Alexander gave them his temporary drivers license, and they waited... for about 15 minutes. The Doctor came out, got Alexander, looked in his mouth, and told him that he had a big cavity. He drilled and filled it with a temporary filling and told them to return in 22 days for the permanent one. (Why twenty two days?) Then they gave Joe the bill, 7,000 colones. For those of you who only speak american dollars, this may seem like a lot, but it is about $12.00. Can you believe it? We are thrilled.

Today, I had to go. Three days ago, I noticed that I had about 6 raised, red spots on my leg. Yesterday, I found about 100, all over my body, on my face, in my mouth, on my eyelids, legs, arms, torso, palms of my hands... weird. And they were so itchy. I went to the pharmacy, which is the place you usually go here for medicine. Usually you show your symptoms or tell them, and they give you the medicine you want. Most of the time, they ask you how much you want. Amazing. You are like, what do you mean? My medical care in my own hands? Wow. Anyway, they had no idea what it was, so they gave me something, we decided for 5 days. Then today I woke up with maybe 200. So off we went to Clinica Cedcas, since it is the only place we know. They said they could see me in a half an hour, called me in early. I was weighed, my blood pressure checked, etc. The Dr. came , looked at the spots, talked to us. Super nice and unhurried. Then she said she was going to give me a steriod shot, take my blood and have the lab evaluate it and give me a prescription. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. And it cost 21,000 colones, about 40 bucks, including the blood and the lab work.

It is just interesting.

We are living in a LEDC, which I have learned from Alexander's World Geography class, is a less economically developed country. It is doing well for a country that isn't super developed, for sure, and there are tons of things here that economically and physically are absent. And at the same time, we are finding that medical care is not only professional, relaxed and easily available, it is not only cheap, it's worth it. It feels so appropriate on every level.

There are so many times that we have heard that people here think that the USA way is the ideal to hold up and aim for. And in many ways, you can see why. I think it would be amazing for our US Government to cast an eye this way when they are trying to provide good health care for all.