Mari and I are now in Panama City. We arrived last night and are staying in a hostel named La Jungla in a barrio of the city named El Congrejo - the crab.
Today we visited the hospital for the second time druing our stay in Panama. Mari has a cyst on her chest, and has had it for years without problem, but for some reason while we were in Boquete it started acting up. We left Boquete and headed to Bocas Del Toro in the north to find that Mari couldnt move, breathe, or sleep without intense pain in her chest. The cyst turned bright red and hot, turned swollen and looks horrible. We spent our sceond day in Bocas waiting at the small, local hospital to be seen. The doc looked her over, prescribed antibiotics, ibuprofen to reduce the swelling, and some cream to rub on the area. The entire visit plus medication cost us $10.95.
For the next several days Mari suffered from pain and reduced movement. Now, the pain has reduced immensely, but the cyst still looks horrible. Its red and slightly less swollen, but looks like it has fluid inside. Ultimately, it needs to be sliced open, removed, drained and given time to heal. We are just counting the days til we can leave to Uruguay so she can have the surgery at home instead of during our stay here in Panama.
Anyway, the doctors today prescribed more antibiotics and said to wait to see what happens. If it gets worse, we will head back in. We are hoping that the reduction in pain can be correlated to the improvement of the ailment. We are crossing our fingers.
We have tickets back to Uruguay on the 24th. Just 9 more days to go.
I forgot to mention that one of the most curious things about Panama is that they use the US dollar as the currency. So everything is priced, bought, and sold in US dollars. Very strange I think.
Panama City looks to be under major construction. Looking at the skyline, I can see highrise after highrise under construction, building cranes atop the buildings like actual birds. Looking in the paper there are several advertisements for ingenieros (engineers). I dont know how much the jobs pay, but this looks like a really promising city to find a job in. Plus, the airport in Panama City is a major hub with cheaper flights everywhere. Not a bad location. I may have to work on my resume a bit.
Ciao
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