Off to the doctor, and exciting news for May!

Late last month I had a sinus infection. It cleared up on its own, or so I thought it did. The beginning of this month, I woke up with a sore throat one day. It turned into a few sniffles, and actually started to get better quite quickly. But the last week or so it has gone downhill and I believe it turned into some kind of chest infection.

Not so bad that it was affecting our day to day activities though. I still felt fine overall, and had no problem doing our normal walking. But the cough was bothersome and it was starting to affect our sleep, so we figured I should do something about it.

Here in Mexico it is common to have a small doctor office located beside a pharmacy. They're normally very inexpensive, because of course they often suggest medication that is purchased at the attached pharmacy. 

In the little town of Damian Carmona, there is one such place.

It's a funny setup because it's a real family business! As we were entering the doctor office, the girl in the pharmacy came out and said she had to get the doctor, and sent another girl off running. We were the only ones waiting, and we had a seat. It turns out the doctor was in the little tienda (small grocery shop) next door. He and his wife own that, the doctor office, and the daughter is the pharmacist!

Golden fronted woodpecker.

The doctor led us into his office. Old desk and chair, old torn examination bed. Bicycles stored in the corner. Reminded us of the time we had to take Cameron to the doctor in Morocco. In fact, the doctor office in Morocco might have been better equipped!

But the guy was pretty good. He asked a lot of questions. Zero English, so everything done in Spanish. He said I did quite well with describing the symptoms! Looked down my throat, and did the old stethoscope breathing thing. Pretty basic stuff in the doctor business, I suppose.

Then proceeded to prescribe 4 different medications! One is for the cough, one is an antibiotic, one anti-inflammatory, and one that has something to do with immune response.

Total price including all medication and the doctors visit? 

540 pesos ($37.50 CAD, $27 USD). 

It's becoming quite common to be able to pay with credit card in Mexico, even in some of the smaller shops. I asked the pharmacist girl, and she said "sure, but you have to follow me to the shop", where we went to see the doctor, now manning the cash register in the shop. 

Oh, and would you like a cantaloupe to go with that?

So we bought a cantaloupe as well. Too funny.

Back at Igor, I started sorting out all my pills. Never in my life have I had to take so many drugs! I don't like it, but by this morning, I think they are starting to kick in. Only problem... Ruth woke up with a cough! We figured it would be pretty lucky if she managed to survive not getting it too.

Oh, we received an exciting email yesterday.

We were aware of some volunteer language immersion programs in Spain. So we applied for one of them because the dates pretty much lined up with the time that we arrive in Madrid. But this isn't to improve our Spanish... this is to help profession Spaniards improve their English!

We found out yesterday that our application was approved.

The program is five nights/six days. They pick us up in Madrid on a Sunday morning and bring us to the venue where they have a full program over the time period that includes our private accommodation, all meals, and evening entertainment. Then drive us back to Madrid on the Friday evening.

Zero cost to us, between the time they pick us up and drop us off back in the city.

Our responsibility is to spend from 10am to 2pm, and 5pm to 8pm (9pm some days) doing one on one English conversations with participants. But you are talking with someone different for each one hour period. 

Should be interesting, and if it's not? Well it's only five nights/six days. Most participants really seem to enjoy the program, so we'll see. Something different to do!

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