Tags: Sibiu, Romania, mosquito, hospital, ill
Date: 12 July 2006 12:22:29
Today I had an unexpected opportunity to take part in some relevant "participant observation" in Romania's health care system. Although with rather too much "participation" for my liking, I would have preferred a bit more of the observation side of things! Yesterday when I got back to the pension I noticed an interesting lump on my hip - basically like a golf ball, hard, hot, red, and really really itchy - radiating round a mosquito bite that I'd not noticed previously. It looked to me like cellulitis, and when I woke up groggy in the middle of the night because it was too hot, I convinced myself that the nasty cellulitis-causing staph bug would track its way round my body and I'd be on death's door by morning. Morning came and I was thankfully no nearer death's door than I was before, but the lump was no smaller and no less concerning, so I trooped off to the pharmacy. After an encounter with possibly Romania's grumpiest and least helpful pharmacist (I suspect that's saying something!) I took myself off to the hospital, and once I'd got past Romania's grumpiest nurse (again probably saying something) ended up having IV hydrocortisone (from a very nice nurse - so there's the proof, at least one nurse here has a decent bedside manner) and a prescription for antihistamines and some yellow liquid which apparently is for some sort of compress. I can't find this stuff in my super duper Romanian medical dictionary, so am not sure what exactly it is, but assuming it's nothing too scary I shall just have to improvise what I do with it. I'm still not unconvinced that it's cellulitis and that I might need some antibiotics to get rid of it, but they all seemed to think it was just an impressive allergic reaction, so hopefully they're right and I'm being a drama queen (like that would be the first time).
Bloody mosquitoes. After my relentless diet of carbs, crap, more carbs and more crap my hips (not to mention bum and belly) are swelling perfectly well by themselves without any extra help.