Immigration and Illness

This is sort of a long one, but it’s a good one.

I have two stories, one about being stopped by an immigration officer which at the time was not funny, but now it kind of is and the other about getting a little sick. I’ll start with the immigration episode.

Lesson of the day: always…ALWAYS carry a copy of your passport. I do do this, except the other day I stepped out for lunch and did not bring my wallet (which has a copy of my passport in it). So anyways, I was walking from home back to work after lunch and I see a pick-up truck approaching (with ministry of immigration stuff printed on it) me and slowing down and pull beside me, and of course I just ignore it and keep walking. Not to stereotype, but the last thing I need is to deal with a corrupt immigration officer….I have heard lots of stories about corruption form locals here, especially cops. The truck then backs up rolls down the window and I could see he was in proper uniform and the following translated dialogue takes place.

Officer: Are you a foreigner?
Me: Pardon?
Officer: I said are you a foreigner?
Me: Yes.
Officer: What are you doing here?
Me: Working on a co-op with school at Oxfam-Quebec
Officer: Let me see your passport.
Me: I don’t have it on me.
Officer: Where is it?
Me: In my wallet at the office, where I am heading.
Officer: Where is the office?
- I give him the directions-
Officer: Ok, get in the truck we are going there.
Me: Uhh, I don’t think so.
Officer: Get in the truck.
Me: I don’t feel comfortable with that.
Officer: (in a stern voice) Get in the truck or the police will be called and I will take you in.
Me: Yes sir. (felt pretty sketchy getting into this guys truck to say the least, but I had no choice at the time)
Officer: So your passport is at the office?
Me: yes I have a copy there.
Officer: I do not want a copy, where is the original?
Me: My house.
Officer: Where is your house?
Me: I don’t want to tell you.
Officer: (stern voice) Listen, you are not in a position to bargain I need to see the original.
Me: sure thing (I give him directions thinking oh great this guy is going to rob me blind)
- we get to my house making friendly chitchat along the way –
Me: Ok. I am going into my house to get my passport but I want you to stay in the truck and not get out because I do not want you in my house.
Officer: Fine.
- I go in, make sure to lock the gate behind me before opening the door, and then lock the door and get my passport, and then go back to the truck where the office is still sitting, I must have intimidated him with my forwardness AHAHA –
Me: Here you go.
- officer writes some stuff down, asks me some questions like when did I get here, when do I leave, what am I doing here blah blah blah –
Officer: Ok, thank you, you can go now.
Me: Ok, thanks. But, since you stopped me on my way back to work and then took me back here and it is super hot outside can you give me a drive to work?
Officer: I’ll drop you off at the Pan-American.
Me: Deal.

That is my immigration officer story. I hope you enjoyed it.
When I got back to work I told people this and they were all shocked because this has never happened to anyone before and they never carry a copy of their passport. And of course they were like you got in the truck! I was like yea, but I had no real choice, it was him or the cops and I would rather deal with one immigration officer than a bunch of cops. So anyways, the secretary at the office called the Department of Immigration to see if this is normal and they said yes, there was someone in Estelí today and that this is a new program they are doing because apparently there are a lot of ‘illegal’ tourists in Nicaragua, which simply means that they do not renew their visa, and they are trying to crack down on it.

Now, on to my next story…illness, this one is not so fun, I warn you.

So, Tuesday night from 11pm until Wednesday at 8am I thought I was going to die. No joke. If I did not think I was going to die I was hoping because it would have been a lot easier and less painful. Starting from the end, I have parasites in my intestines. NOT FUN. Back to the beginning…
Tuesday night I get home at about 10pm after watching some t.v. at a friend’s house. It was the premier of L.A Ink and Kat Von D is superhot so I had agreed to watch it with a friend. I get home feeling normal as usual, brush my teeth, wash my face and go to bed. In bed I am a little restless, but whatever, maybe I’m just not tired. At around 11pm I get the urge to throwup so I run to the washroom and throwup…a lot. Shit, I think, that sucked. I brush my teeth go back to bed. 5 minutes later I am throwing up again and I did not stop throwing up until I went to the hospital in the morning and they gave me an injection to stop throwing up at around 8am. Seriously, no joke, I must have thrown up somewhere between 25 and 35 times. I have never been sick like this in my life and it does not stop at throwing up, I am talking violently ill, thought I was dieing. At about 4am I started having diarrhea too (sorry about this gross story) and no the throwing up did not stop. Whenever I was not puking or on the toilet I was lying in bed, actually I just started puking from my bed into the garbage can because I was too weak to walk to the washroom. At around 3am I was like damn, I need to wake my housemate and go to the hospital. This was my thought for like 4 hours but I could not get myself to do it. Every time I stood up or moved in bed I threw up. I would roll over in bed and it felt like I could feel my blood turning inside of me. You know how if you have water in a bottle and you move it and the water moves, that’s what my insides felt like when I moved. Still, I got up and would pace my house but my mind was not functioning very well and I was really really loopy and for some reason just would not wake her up. I started getting really crazy hot and cold flashes and would throw up and stand there just sweating buckets and then 5 minutes later be wrapped up in my sleeping bag in bed shivering like crazy and my mind was just completely spinning (thinking I am going to die) and wishing I was at home being comforted by someone and hoping not to get crushed by the ceiling that I thought was caving in on me and having severe body pains. So a few attempts to go get my housemate but every time I would get up I would start shivering and be freezing cold so I hopped back in my sleeping bag. Stupid I know, but my mind was not functioning properly. So after another hour of lying in my bed occasionally vomiting into the bucket and going from shivering and moaning cold to shaking and moaning sweating hot I got up banged on my housemates door at around 7am and she is like, oh thanks for waking me up Francis but don’t worry, I am not going to be late for work because I took the day off today. Umm, can I come in I say. I go in and am like, ok, I need to go to the hospital. She took one look at me and we were out the door in 3 minutes (she made me change that’s why it took so long, haha). So she calls someone from work and gets them to come pick us up and drive us to the hospital. I go straight in and they hook me up to an I.V. because I was super super dehydrated (from nearly 8 hours of vomiting and 4 of diarrhea). Then they gave me a needle to stop the vomiting and it worked. They gave me a room and put some other stuff in my I.V. and I had to give them a urine sample and a stool sample. Not cool because my stool was, well, you can imagine. So yeah, anyways, I stayed in the hospital bed for almost 12 hours all the while hooked up to an I.V. And they gave me a bunch of medicine and kept shooting other stuff in my I.V. tube. My body felt so weird, I could feel this stuff going through me and by the end of the day my body was aching so badly from the previous morning and all this stuff getting pumped into me. Anyways, they were thinking of making me stay at the hospital overnight but I said I would really like to go home and they said that’s fine as long as I promise to keep hydrated. I promised. My body was so weak it was ridiculous, I could barely walk, I felt like a zombie. The Doc told me to only eat boiled vegetables for the next day.

They gave me some medicine, 7 different types! All in all this whole ordeal, hospital stay and medicine cost me $68.37 cents. Not bad, probably would have put me in life-long debt and poverty if I were in the U.S., but expensive for here and they asked me to pay on the way out. Needless to say money was the last thing on my mind when I left the house and my housemate did not have enough to cover it, we had about $25 between the two of us, which is really a lot to walk around with here. $68 is not a big deal because it will get reimbursed anyways but I did not have it on me, so I asked them if I could come back tomorrow and pay, and those awesome super nice people said sure, no problem.

Here is my medicine schedule.

Hidrasec (powder mixed with water) – 6am
Ciprofloxacina (anti-biotic) – 7am
Pediarol (different powder mixed with water) – 8am
Gentamicina – 10:30am ( this is a needle that I have to go to the hospital and get and it is to kill the parasite; what is not so cool, its not a needle in the shoulder, it’s a needle right in my ass cheek and it hurts like hell)
Hidrasec – 2pm
Cipro – 7pm
Pediarol – 8pm
Hidrasec – 10pm
Quistemizol – after everytime I eat
Oral rehydration salts – after everytime I go to the washroom (#2 only)

I have to do all this for the next week. Except the needle, that is only for 4 days. Haha, they asked my housemate if she wanted to give me the needle at home and we were both like uhhhh I don’t think so. And they said but you have to come here at 10:30 for the next 4 days to get it. That’s fine I said.
Yeah, not fun, does not really fit into my catch up on sleep schedule because I got zero sleep that dreadful night and staying up until 10 and waking up at 6am the same day I got back form the hospital were not in my plans.
So yeah, the Doc said I contracted this parasite a while ago, probably during my first week here, from some type of water source, could have been something as small as an ice cube or bad produce not cooked properly. But all is good now. I feel pretty crappy, but nothing too serious anymore, I am super tired and feel kind of weak but I ate and it was a success. I had boiled vegetables, some toast, some more boiled vegetables and some chicken noodle soup, oh and eggs. I have to give thanks to my housemate who is absolutely awesome, she took care of me like a mother and she had taken the day off too. I feel bad. She ran around all day for me, got all my medicines because only some pharmacies have certain things, would buy me water and Gatorade and Wednesday afternoon she went home made some boiled vegetables for me and brought them back because the hospital does not give food (probably a good thing), and she kept popping in and out throughout the day and keeping me company. Anyways, the worst has passed and no need to worry, I just needed to get this off my chest and rant about it. I am going to go get a needle in my ass now and then limp back from the hospital.

Have a good weekend, talk to you soon!

Your friend,
Francis.