Urgente - mais ou menos

Ooooh, look at me - I'm learning portuguese!  You'll have to pardon the extreme sarcasm of this post - I'm feeling a little cranky after a long night spent at the ER.  Max's toe was looking worse and worse, and I had a gut feeling that handing us antibiotics and sending us on our way was NOT the best treatment.  After consulting with the nurse that BP has on call for us, Max and I headed back down to the clinic (via a borrowed driver, as ours was picking Adam up from work) on Friday afternoon.  Max and Molly stayed with my friend JoAnn, which was great.

So Max and I get to see the same doctor that saw us Tuesday, and she tried telling me that his toe looked better.  Uh....no.  His toe was now more swollen, oozing, and had a red streak that was extending down his big toe.  Once I pointed that out to her, she suddenly changed her tune and declared that we needed to go to the other clinic, the one on the 'Ilha' or island, and that he needed to have surgery done immediately.  We were told that even though the clinic closed at 5pm, as long as we told them it was 'urgente' - we would be seen, and that they had called ahead and let the surgeon know we were coming.

I was not so keen on the idea of my son having surgery in a 3rd world country...but I knew that it wasn't *such* a huge deal to have a portion of his toenail cut out and the wound cleaned up - so I wasn't getting too worked up.  We waited for our driver to bring Adam to the clinic, and then all 4 of us - Adam, Max, Bungo, and I - drove into the city to the other clinic.  It took almost 2 hours to get there, because of the crazy traffic.  Adam hadn't eaten all day, I hadn't brought any water with me, and all I had were some sticks of taffy that I keep on hand for bribing the kids when I'm bus mom.  So - everyone got taffy to sustain them!

We arrived at the clinic, and got shuffled around from window to window, until we finally found a woman who spoke English and could help us.  She planted us in a waiting area while she tried to locate someone who knew what to do with us, and Adam decided to go and try to find some water for us.  Of course, while he was gone, that's when she came back and led Max and I to see the doctor.  Oh. My.  She led us into a sort of makeshift recovery room, with about 8 stretchers pressed together, all of them full of people lying on them.  No curtains, no privacy - just Max and I cruising past their feet, trying not to look!  We saw the doctor, who pulled Max's shoe off and had a conversation in Portuguese with the nurse.  Then we were led back to a different waiting area.  Adam finally found us, and Max was able to tell him about our experience.  According to Max, it felt like he was 'walking through a mental institution!'  Almost an hour went by, and finally the doctor and the lady who spoke english came in to talk to us.  No one had called to let them know we were coming, and the surgeon was busy doing other surgeries.  Max's toe wasn't an emergency, so they'd prefer us to come back sometime next week to have it taken care of.  Adam asked them WHY the other doctor had said it WAS urgent, and they said, "Well, mais ou menos."  Well great, that clears it up - it's urgent....more or less.  They explained that we were welcome to wait a few hours and hope that the surgeon had time for us, or come back in the morning.  I'm glad Adam and I were both there to discuss it, and we finally decided that we didn't think his toe would fall off between then and the morning, so we opted to leave and come back the next day.

We finally got back home sometime around 9pm, and all fell into bed.  Adam and Max went back this morning, and in only about 5 hours, it was all taken care of.  Max's poor toe was cut open in several spots in order to clean out the infection, but no nail was removed.  He'd still on antibiotics, and we will go back Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to the clinic to have him checked on.  Please pray that his toe heals quickly and without further incident....this was exactly the type of situation that I was hoping to avoid here.  All things considered, it could always be worse - but let's hope that this is the most traumatic things get for us.