This is the first Holiday Season I have spent here in Loreto
since my very first Christmas in 2005, just a month after taking possession of
the newly finished casa. This year I am
also hosting my Sister Janice and Brother-in-Law Tom, here for a visit from
Calgary, who arrived last week.
On the first day they arrived, at the end of a fairly late
night of catching up with each other, my Sister reported that on her way to bed
she noticed a cascade of “sparkly flashes” of light in one eye, but thought
nothing of it, putting it down to the late hour and the fatigue of air travel –
and perhaps overindulgence in the welcoming beverages!
However, the next morning she awoke with cloudy vision in
that eye and a large black “floater” in the bottom corner of her vision – and
the realization that this might be something serious that required some
action. After conversation over
breakfast it was decided that the first course of action should be for Janice
to call her Optometrist in Calgary and ask him for his opinion. Connecting over Skype (voice over internet
phone service) she was able to speak with her Calgary Doctor and, after
questioning her about her symptoms, he concluded that it was likely caused by
one of two conditions; a condition called PVD (posterior vitreous detachment ),
which was a non-threatening condition that would resolve itself eventually and
did not require any urgent attention – or, alternatively it could be a tear or
detachment of the retina which was potentially a very serious situation and would
require immediate treatment by laser stapling
to prevent further retinal detachment and potential blindness!
Faced with these serious options, our first priority was
obviously to find someone who could determine which of them we were facing,
before we could decide what, if any, further action was going to be required. To that end, I decided the first step was to
call one of my Loretano friends, Cecilia, who has lived off and on in Loreto
for years and is fluently bi-lingual, and I thought could be helpful in this
situation.
I wanted to get in touch with a Dr. Gill, who owns one of
the three Optical offices in Loreto, and was by reputation by far the most
qualified, and the only Optometrist in town, as the other two were Opticians,
qualified to fill optometric prescriptions and to fit glasses. I had visited Dr.
Gill’s Office several times earlier this Fall to order a new pair of lenses for
my own glasses, but had always found the Office closed.
So, when I called Cecilia that morning I was hoping she could
help me get in touch with Dr. Gill and arrange an appointment for him to
examine my Sister’s eye and determine if, and how serious a situation we were
dealing with. When Cecilia answered her
cell phone my first question was “Are you in Loreto”, to which she replied,
“No, I’m in La Paz, how can I help you?”
After I explained the situation, Cecilia said she would get
in touch with her Mother, who lives in Loreto, and ask her to try get in touch
with Dr. Gill for me, and Cecilia would try to call me back in 10 or 15
minutes. When she got back to me called
back it was to say that her Mother had not been able to get an answer on Dr.
Gill’s cell and so she was going over to his house to see if he was at home –
another advantage of living in a small town!
Sometime later I got another call back from Cecilia, her Mother had
determined that there was no one home at Dr. Gill’s and furthermore, she had
asked around and found out that he was away from Loreto and was not due to
return until February.
Definitely time for “Plan B”! After confirming with Cecilia that Dr. Gill
was the only qualified person here to evaluate my Sister’s situation, we
quickly came to the conclusion that our best option was probably going to be found
in La Paz, which is where the biggest and best Hospitals are – and,
(coincidentally?) where Cecilia was.
So it was left that she would make inquiries and identify
who she thought would be the best available specialist we could get an
appointment with as soon as possible, hopefully by the afternoon of the
following day, as La Paz was a 4 hour drive from Loreto and it was already
getting on for late morning, probably too late to make the trip and be there in
time to see anyone that day. While we
were waiting to hear back from Cecilia, my Sister was becoming more familiar
with the symptoms in her eye and was noticing that the “black spot” was
thinning out and moving from the bottom to the top of her eye, which we took to
be a good sign – inconsistent with our most serious concern of retinal damage,
which presents as a firmly closing black shutter across the field of vision.
In the meantime, I wanted to see if I could find some
medical assistance locally that might be able to shed further light (pardon the
pun) on the situation. After speaking to
several people in the community I got some useful input from Cynthia (who runs
the Wine Cellar here with her husband Will), first of all, she had met a new
General Practitioner Doctor in Loreto who spoke fluent English and had recently
opened a small Clinic, half-days in Loreto. Secondly, she said she had recently
seen a “thread” on a Yahoo Group; “La Paz Gringos”, dealing with someone who
was looking for medical assistance with a retinal detachment and the thread
contained some referral information to resources in La Paz which she copied and
forwarded to me.
While we were still waiting to hear further from Cecilia, we
headed into town to the new Medical Clinic, located on the ground floor of the
Santa Fe Hotel, which I had been told was open Monday through Friday from 4:00
to 8:00 pm. We walked into the small
waiting area of the Office and were immediately greeted by Dr. Angel Alaniz
(cell 613-104-2077) who was alone in his office, and invited Janice into his
examination room, where she described her symptoms and he asked her questions
and gave her answers in flawless English and conducted a basic examination of
her eyes.
Following this, he invited Tom and myself into the Office
and explained to all of us that, while his brief examination was not in any way
thorough or decisive, he had not seen anything alarming, but he assured us that
Janice should see a specialist as soon as possible. In the meantime, he prescribed some drops
that might help if there was any infection that could be a cause or result of
the condition. For this advice and his
immediate consultation, and over half an hour of consultation, the charge was merely
100 Pesos – or about $7.00 US!
(I can highly recommend Dr. Alaniz and plan to contact him
again, any time I need the services of a Doctor here locally. He spends his mornings on call at the Villa
del Palmar Resort south of Loreto Bay, and weekday afternoons in his Clinic in
town, and is available for emergencies on his cell at anytime – an important
new health resource for the English speaking community here in Loreto!)
Later that evening, I received a call from Cecilia; after
canvassing her friends in La Paz she had identified a Doctor Fausto Ortiz who was
an “Oftalmologo Cirujano de Retina y Vitreo” which I roughly translate as an
Ophthalmologist Eye Surgeon – exactly the man we needed to see! His Office in La Paz was adjacent to the
FIDEPAZ Hospital (which was featured in a Guest Blog from January of this year
“Healthcare in the Baja”) and he could see us for an examination appointment
almost immediately, at 6:15 pm the following day! Try to get into a highly
qualified specialists´ office on a day´s notice in Calgary!
Of course, we accepted the appointment with enthusiasm, with
many thanks to Cecilia for having found Dr. Ortiz and made the appointment for
us. We quickly made plans to leave here
just after noon the next day for the approximately 4-hour drive to La Paz, made
reservations to spend the night there after the appointment and to meet Cecilia
and her boyfriend for dinner.
The drive to La Paz was uneventful, although my Sister was
intimidated by the narrow road, yawning cliffs, and the twists and turns of
Mexico Highway #1, which I have become used to driving over the years. We located the Hospital, painted bright
purple, and located on the main road entering La Paz, just past the Walmart,
and then we proceeded on into the center of town where we had reservations at
the 7 Crowns Hotel on the Malacon where I had stayed on previous visits.
After checking in to this scrupulously clean, comfortable
business-class hotel, we headed back to the Hospital, arriving half an hour
early for our appointment in Dr. Ortiz’s Office, in the wing across the parking
lot from the main entrance. After a
short wait he saw Janice before the appointment time and after discussing her
symptoms and giving a quick preliminary exam, he put anesthetic and dilating drops
in her eye and told her (in excellent English) to wait fifteen minutes for her pupil to dilate before he did a more
thorough examination.
He then called me and my Brother-in-law into the examining
room; as he explained, “this is an important conversation and you all need to
listen!” The examination was extensive
and lasted for perhaps ten minutes, with a similar sequence of intense lights
and ¨Look up; look down; look left; look right¨ that she was familiar with in
her Calgary Optometrist´s examination.
When he finished, and we were all nervously repositioned in
front of his desk again, he beamed at us with a wide smile, and said, ¨There is
NOTHING wrong with your eye!¨
He had found no damage to her retina and diagnosed that she
had experienced a very common condition which affects 60% of people over 60 and
90% of those in their 90´s. This, he explained,
was very similar to what happens in an egg when the egg white (vitreous fluid) is
reduced in volume over time and then can eventually draw the enclosing membrane
slightly away from the egg shell (retina).
This is seen as the sparkling light show she had experienced. When the
membrane pulls away, there can be a tiny droplet of blood released into the
vitreous fluid, which creates the “floater” she had seen, which will diminish
over time and eventually disappear.
In other words he assured us that there was no damage and
there would be no lasting consequences and no treatment required, but he also, advised
having her vision checked again when she returns home, and see a Doctor as soon
as possible if she has a recurrence of the “sparkly” lights, the symptom of the
separation, in case there is retinal damage the next time. For almost an hour in total of his time,
including a thorough explanation of the specifics of the condition to Janice,
her husband Tom and myself, including showing us numerous illustrations in one
of his medical reference books – the total charge was one thousand pesos, or
about $75.00 US.
Needless to say we were all very relieved and happy with the
diagnosis as we headed off to meet Cecilia and her friend at a great local
Italian restaurant, where we thanked her again in person and went on to enjoy
an interesting evening of conversation together over good food and wine. The next day, after stroll along the La Paz
Malacon and a little early Christmas shopping we headed back to Loreto in the
afternoon, arriving here just before sunset around 5:00 pm.
And so, all’s well that ends well with our Medical “adventure”,
but what I will take away from this experience is the way that I was able to
reach out to my friends here, and with their care and help, find the very
specialized person we needed to see - and be in his office 300 km away getting
exactly the care we needed within 36 hours of the event, a sequence I think
would be difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate in as timely a manner where
my Sister came from back in Canada ,in a city of a million people.
Finding that sort of friendly support, and accessing that
quality of medical care, in that short a period of time, and at such low cost –
this experience has given me an even greater appreciation for “Living Loreto”.
Felize
Navidad y Felize Año Nuevo de Loreto!
