Well these past two weeks we have jumped, both feet, into not only Mexican education, but thanks to Mansell, the health care system as well!  Moving into his first week of school, he was feeling a little off with what seemed to be a common cold.  He was excited and nervous and didn’t want a cold to slow him down and he certainly didn’t want to miss anything, so he powered his way through the first few days… however, as the week wore on, we could tell that he was not getting any better with just sleep and Advil.  By the Thursday morning of that first week, he could not lift his head from his pillow, and we knew he was not fit to attend school.  We had recently read the 56 page code of conduct for the school (yikes!!) and within, clearly stated, is the attendance and illness policy : if a student must be absent due to illness a doctor’s note describing illness and number of days it will be necessary to be absent must be presented. This is a bit of a change for us.  Mansell is in “middle school” now which is essentially a high school set-up and there is a definite “no nonsense” approach upheld there.  He is quite enjoying the structure and is rising to the expectations and displaying respect and is being recognized in his classes as an excellent participant.  He’s been diligently attacking his homework each night (he’s had 1-2 hours each night!) and I actually startled him out of “the zone” when I called his name to go for dinner on Wednesday night – he’s really enjoying Geography and is excited about learning about human migration and it’s causes (a topic that has a lot of real-life applications in the world right now!) Needless to say, he was pretty upset when he couldn’t get out of bed and knew school was out of the question.  For us, it had been a rough night of worry and wonder if we’ve done the right thing; this is a recurring source of anxiety in these early days when everything feels so difficult…we’re definitely in “one-day-at-a-time” mode right now and now to add to that the realization that Mansell was staying “home” from school and was sick enough to need to see a doctor, was not the best start to our day.   We actually experienced a moment of panic.  5:30 in the morning, wide-eyed with worry, we stared at each other for a long time, maybe hoping the other would experience some stroke of genius to clear our cloudy heads and have a solution to “Our kid needs to see a doctor… where do we begin…?”  The enormity of the fact that we literally know nothing about how to get help for our kids, or ourselves here in Mexico, did strike us hard.  This experience also prompted us to seek out the EMS number here (it’s 066 for Mexico and we did learn that if you are anywhere in the world and have a cell phone with service, you can get emergency help by dialing 112.  Thought that was good to know!  We also identified emergency exits in the hotel and the emergency meeting place outside in case of an earthquake.  We were suddenly very motivated to acquire this knowledge!)  In the grand scheme of things, this was a relatively mild problem on which to cut our health-care teeth (no blood or broken bones or ambulances required!) Thankfully we’ve met some really lovely people who have stood in our shoes and are empathetic and helpful, so we decided to text a family that we’ve met through Sanofi who were able to recommend a doctor with good English that they’ve been using for the past year for their kids.  We were given a text number and through “What’s App” we arranged an appointment for Mansell for noon.  Have to say that was a first – a direct text line to a doctor to arrange an appointment?!  And to see us same day, less than six hours later?!?  Unheard of!

Finding a place to park and then un-parking at the end of our hospital visit were the toughest parts.  A lovely receptionist who had little English realized upon our arrival that we had little Spanish and giving us instructions to the other end of the hospital (we used the wrong entrance) might be tricky,  so she walked us there.  So far so good. Peadiatrician Dr. Meave was excellent with Mansell and with us and had decent English, so we got on just fine.  He said something that added perspective to this day, “You know, most Mexicans are good people.  You’re going to have a nice time here”, when we told him our story.  Maybe we looked shell-shocked, like we weren’t yet too sure about this place! 🙂 Because Mansell was displaying really flu-like symptoms, the doctor suggested he be tested and handed us two prescriptions: one to fill if the flu test was positive, and one for a negative result.  We were skeptical as he had his flu-shot in the early fall and as suspected, it was negative for flu, so we filled prescription number two.  ” Farmacia” was easy too and relatively inexpensive.  All told, we were there for 1.5 hours, including lab.  Results were sent electronically and took about an hour.  Was quite a well-oiled machine!  We were bracing ourselves for another uphill battle, but this one was a pleasant surprise. Mansell left with a note for the school from Dr. Meave stating that he was ill and needed to rest and would be away Thursday and Friday.  We got him back to “hotel home” and he had his first dose of medicine and crashed.

A super scary morning morphed into a positive learning experience and the confidence that we now know what to do and who to go to when the next one of our babies needs some medical help.