If you’ve never experienced it, I can tell you first hand that getting sick in a foreign country is absolutely horrible. I was sick for a total of about 2 weeks, and so far those have definitely been the hardest two weeks of the trip (yeah, I know I’ve only been gone a month and a half), but in the end I did end up learning some lessons, so I guess it was a blessing in disguise (?).
It all started when I ate or drank something (no idea what) that was contaminated with some virus or bug. This was back around the 25th of September, and at this point almost everyone living here in Xenacoj was sick with what we all think was the flu. Everyone else was quickly over it after a day in bed, but when it came to Monday I was still feeling extremely sick. That weekend I had felt nauseous, I had major stomach cramps, and I just felt absolutely awful.
German decided that I should probably go to the doctor, because it was going on four days and I still wasn’t feeling any better. So Monday morning, Kourtney, German and I headed to Chimaltenango (about 30 minutes away) to see Dr. Pérez. The doctors office’s in Guatemala are way different than they are back home, so I was kind of surprised when I followed German up to the door (metal bars blocking the doorway) and it was locked. After waiting about 15 minutes outside the door, the doctor finally came and let us into the waiting room, where we waited for another 20 minutes.
Eventually I was taken into his office, he looked at my stomach, and diagnosed me with an inflamed colon, and proceeded to give me four different prescription medications. When he just kept coming out with bottles of pills I started to get kind of worried, I already was expecting to pay quite a bit for the visit, these pills were definitely going to also be pretty expensive. It was a huge blessing straight from God when Dr. Pérez handed me the bottles and said goodbye, he wasn’t charging me for any of my medications or for my actual visit.
After a day of taking these pills I was feeling back to myself and painfree, so I took the pills for the full dose prescribed, one week. After being off the meds for one day, the cramps and nausea came back, just as bad as it was before I went to the doctors office. Starting the night of Thursday October 8th, I started taking my pills again, and by Saturday I was feeling better, though I had only taken one pill. That weekend we were heading into Antigua, so we decided to stop into the hospital to get a few tests done to see what was actually wrong with me, because whatever pills I took just masked the pain and actual problem, they didn’t heal me.
When I went into the hospital, they sent me into the emergency department, where the doctor ended up saying I needed to take two tests, and the results would take 3 hours. It just so happened that one of my squad mates had been admitted into the hospital, so we kept him company, watched movies and ate subway in his room while waiting for my results.
After waiting 4 hours (time here is measured a bit differently) my test results were in. They were telling me that I had absolutely nothing wrong, and the doctor credited that to the pills I had taken 2 days before. I assumed he was right because I knew that somethinghad to be wrong, I had felt absolutely awful 2 days earlier. He told me to come back at 7 am the next morning, and I’d do one test that would show what was wrong, and in the meantime gave me 2 prescriptions to fill and take that night.
So I was still feeling fine at that point, though I had thought the pills should almost be out of my system, so a few of us went for supper, and then headed back to the hostel. The next morning at 7 I still felt fine, but went back for the last test because I was just waiting for the pain to return again. I took the test, and was waiting for another 3 (4) hours, and when I finally got those results back, they were all showing that nothing was wrong too! Just days after I was in agonizing pain, God healed me. It was nothing that the doctors did, because the meds I was prescribed were for only for the heartburn I had been having, so nothing that they gave me healed me, that was 100% God!
I ended up having to pay about 2000 Q ($300 USD) for my doctor appointments, tests, and medications, so one thing that I learned is to be extremely grateful for EVERYTHING because you don’t know how fortunate you are until somethings taken away from you. I had never really been too grateful for Canadian healthcare, but I can tell you that I definitely am now.
I also learned that you don’t always need to know God’s reasoning. I have no idea why God felt the need to make me pay $300 USD when I had already been healed…but I know that He did feel that need. He has reasons that are WAY bigger than me, and I know that His way is the best way. So all in all, if I can give any advice for getting sick while in foreign countries it would be: don’t. I don’t recommend it, though I’ve also realized that if God wants you sick for two weeks there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop it, so embrace the fact that He’s probably trying to teach you something!
Anyways, I’d like to thank everyone for all of your prayers since you found out I got sick, it means a lot to me that so many of you at home are still thinking and praying for me! One last prayer request, there’s an insane amount of corruption here in Guatemala, so you can just pray for this country as a whole.
