February 17, 2010

Two weeks ago I went with the Peace Corps doctor to a clinic to have an ultra-sound after months of mild diarrhea about twice a week, and after several rounds of antibiotics, probiotics, oatmeal and yogurt, and strictly adhering to guidelines for filtered water. The first day I went my stomach was all lubed up, the technician went to work, and then he asked me if I had eaten breakfast. I said yes, and he turned off the machine and said that I should have come in with an empty stomach. I just looked at the PC doctor who failed to tell me this fact. I went back five days later, and he found nothing.

But what was interesting were the signs on the clinic halls. They were in Russian first, then Armenian and then English. There was an andrologist, a sexopathologist, a sonagrapher, a scientific nurse, a therapeutist, and a gynoecologist. The last one was the only one that I understood. I saw the sonagrapher who I would have told you, out of this situation, had something to do with finding things in the ocean. My exam cost $13 and I would say that this man was technically competent, though I know nothing about these things.

When you walked into the clinic, you checked in at the front desk and then went down the hall to sit in the next chair in line in front of the room of the person you were seeing. First come, first served.

Just after this experience, I was walking around Yerevan to get some air, and went into a hotel gift shop where I met an American woman who had recently moved to Armenia with her Armenian husband of ten years. He is a concert pianist and wanted to come back and spend time with his family. She had never been to Armenia and was still in a state of shock about the conditions she found here. I mentioned that I had just come from the clinic, and she teared-up as she related her experience in the hospital shortly after she came here, when she had to have a D & C for menopause problems. She said that she felt the staff was incompetent, the room was dirty, the sheets had been used, and on and on. As she left the hospital she was crying hysterically, and at this point does not know if she can go on in Armenia. Part of the problem is that she went to a bad hospital. Next time I am in Yerevan I am having dinner with this woman and her husband.

Just the week prior to my medical experience, and the week after I recovered from bronchitis, my host mother’s nephew died of the flu. He was 45 years old. He went into the hospital on a Monday and died on a Wednesday. His mother was at our house the Saturday before he died and Emma asked me to bring out the medicine I had been taking for bronchitis. I showed it to her, she made a few notes, mentioned that her son was sick, and then I heard he died. I was crushed.

The body was brought to her house and lay there until Saturday when it was transferred to the cemetery. The women sat around the body (open casket) for days on end, and the men stood outside smoking and talking. Bodies here are not embalmed, so the air was pretty foul by Saturday.

My 2.5 hour visit in the hotel bar with the American woman made me realize how fortunate I am to have fellow volunteers to gripe to and share with when I think I’m going to go crazy with all kinds of things. (The latest is that we only have water for one hour in the morning, 7 to 8. Since the bathtub is the water holding-tank for five people, not including the toilet, my turn to bathe comes around not more than once every four days. Clothes have not been washed for weeks. I am the only person in my house bothered by this. There is a solution: a holding tank and pump, but they cannot afford it.)

On the sunny side, it is 42 degrees outside, all our snow is gone, though the mud is incredible. A good friend sent me an electric blanket and I have a toasty bed at night though I had to plug the blanket into a converter and warning flashes go off all the time. In Armenian, we say “Voch eench!” (Who cares!) Such little things make life good.