The good, the bad, and the ugly :)

The good: As many of you have probably seen on facebook or heard from other sources...I am in a relationship. It took me a long time to get to this point, but God is good. I have posted about him a couple of times on here and I have had lots of suspicious questions...but I supposed I should put to rest all rumors and officially announce it :). I have renounced my haterish ways, so that is a good thing :) I would post all the details...but the story is better in person and it's actually pretty great. So if you're really interested to hear it, let's talk BECAUSE I'm coming home in TWO WEEKS!! Crazy. Yah, it's complicated and not according to my plans...but as we've seen over the last two years, God's planning a better adventure than I ever would have planned for myself.

The bad: I'm still really sick. I haven't had to return to the hospital, but I've only seen a little improvement. I went to school today, sat the whole day, and haven't gotten out of bed but once since I've been home. Please pray that I heal so I'm not such a lamo for my last two weeks here. I don't ever remember a time being so sick for so long, so this is SO frustrating.

The ugly: I guess there really isn't anything ugly...but it made the post title a little more catchy ;). I guess if anything, you could definitely say that this sickness isn't the most becoming thing. I've definitely had better looking days :). But in all honesty, right now in my life God is making everything beautiful in His time.

Much love!

Public v. Private Health Care

Yesterday I witnessed first hand the differences between public and private health care. It made me wonder what our country is thinking. So I've continued being sick. I know I've blogged a couple of times about so reocurring problems I've had here, but it all came to a head yesterday. I had been so sick over the weekend and Monday and Tuesday that I became dehydrated yesterday. I left school and went to the local clinic to turn in some samples and get blood drawn but they only do that from 7-9 and since I got there at 9:20, I couldn't do it. I also wasn't able to see a doctor because I hadn't stood in line at 6 a.m. to get an appointment and now the doctor was filled the whole day. I went home so frustrated and even sicker from walking around. Some friends suggested I go to the public emergency room because I was dehydrated, so my Tico family took me over there. Ridiculous. We waited 1/2 in line to get in the building. I finally got in the door where two ladies took my blood pressure and asked me what was going on. She told me my pulse was really low and gave me a green card and told me to go wait in another line and then sit down. I got through that line and went and sat down with a million other people. I learned that everyone gets a green card unless you are a life-threatening emergency (red card) or high pain emergency (yellow card). You must wait in the order you come if you're a green card, unless more yellow or reds come. In summary, I waited at least two hours to be attended to. I was dying on that bench. Some older lady kept talking to me and finally went up to the window and said I needed to be taken care of. They told her there were 7 more people in front of me, so I waited. I finally got in. The doctor asked a couple of questions, felt around in my stomach and gave me papers and told me to go wait in another line. I waited in this line to get two injections in the bum (don't know what they were) for another half an hour. Then I was sent to another line for another half an hour to get medications. So five hours later, I got home still incredibly dehydrated, but with money in my pocket because it was free. Kate and Albin came home and put me in the car and took me to Clinica Biblica (a private hospital). Within twenty minutes of arriving, I was put in a bed, and hooked up to an IV. They took my samples and did a blood test, spent a good amount of time with me asking questions and poking around. I even got a blanket :). I was there for a long time, but just so they could run all of the tests. What a difference. Of course, the bill was pretty expensive (half my months paycheck expensive), but leaving feeling better and like I finally had some answers was feeling good. So I'm not sure, I mean, thankfully I had the money to pay the bill for the private care which was so much better. And going home sicker than I had been from the free clinic was a little frustrating. It was such an exhausting day. Basically, I don't have any parasites or bacterias, but my blood test came back a little funny. So, if I don't improve in a couple of days, we'll know its not just a virus or something and have to do further testing. I would appreciate your prayers for healing so that I don't have to do the awful clinic again nor the expensive private hopital. :/

Saying some goodbyes :(

I can't believe it is already June. We have already begun saying goodbye and that is difficult. We said good bye to one of our best friends here, Yoji, yesterday. Well, scratch that, we said goodbye like 17 times counting the amount of goodbye parties he's had. One last weekend, one Saturday, and one Monday. So this weekend, we did some fun things. On Friday night, we went up to a really high point in CR, near a volcano. From where we parked, we overlooked the whole city and had a "picnic." It was beautiful...until a big group of random guys looking for a good place to do drugs came around. No good. Then Saturday, we had an end of the year teacher's brunch and we had the surprise party for Yoji with his gringo friends. My favorite thing about this party had to be when Albin asked me to go find cheesepuffs at the grocery store. Unfortunately he didn't say cheesepuffs, but "chispa" (pronounced like cheespah) which means matches. lol oh the miscommunication. The house we were at had a fireplace...so like any good gringos, we lit it up and made smores (even though it was 70 degrees). When you don't often see fireplaces, you'll take it in any temperature. Sunday, I cut Kate's hair. Big deal. I was so nervous. Kate is much more fashionable...and has a very particular haircut. I can't believe she let me....but it worked out :). This week, I also said bye to Eden, the high school student I mentored this year. She has become such a dear friend to me...so that was hard. I will hopefully see her again in two years or so. Besides that, I'm just teaching and finishing things up here. Here are some pictures of me and my students. They are so sweet. We had a bracelet sale and a bake sale today and we made $200 for my trip :) hooray!