Apendicitis

So yesterday I was woken up with a call from the school telling me that they thought Marinella had apendicitis. At the moment Maribel was taking care of it. She brought Marinella to the center of health here in Pacasmayo and they did some peliminary tests. They needed to have an ultrisound done but the doctor wasn't there who could do it. So I brought them to the hospital in Guadalupe which is about 25 minutes away. There she was attended by another doctor who did some more tests. A blood sample and a urine sample. After that they finally got around to the ultrisound. The blood test and the urine test came back negative, but the doctors were still a little worried because she had all the symptoms, and her pain was continually getting worse. A side note, all this was taking hours and hours. It was 4:00 in the afternoon before the doctors decided that she needed to have the surgery. And at that point, we found out that there was no anethesiologist in Guadalupe so she had to be transported to Trujillo. I said that I would take her but they assured me that it would be better to go in an ambulance. So we waited another 3 hours for the ambulance to arrive at the hospital.

I thought it was some kind of bad joke when the ambulance got there. All it was, was a pickup truck with a camper shell. They rigged it up with rolling cots and called it an ambulance. No medical equipment, nothing. Also the bed light of the truck was out so for light in the back compartment they brought them a flashlight, but the first flashlight they brought them didn't have enough batteries so they had to go get another one. Maribel and I were extremely upset that we waited for 3 hours for this, all the while Marinella was getting worse. Then they said they were out of gas so they had to go fill it up with gas. After all that, they were ready to go. Except for the fact that no doctor or nurses wanted to go to Trujillo. If people ride in an ambulance they have to be accompained by a doctor and a nurse. So finally someone who didn't suck finally showed up on the scene cussed out all the crappy doctors and nurses and hopped in the back of the ambulance and they took off at 7:30.

Maribel and the house mom Sindy went with her in the ambulance. I went ahead and drove myself back home in the van. I hadn't ate, drank or showered all day and I was about ready to pass out. I called Maribel at 10:00 and they were just getting into the hospital. At 11:00 they were starting the surgery. I called this morning at 10:00 and they said that everything was ok. The surgery went well and she should be ready to leave Monday.

This is not the actual ambulance because I didn't have my camera with me. However I found this image on the internet, and it is exactly what she rode in.