Rufous-tailed Hummingbird & My Health

This “hummer” is still the dominant or most seen hummingbird in my garden. But with still fewer flowers than normal this year, all of my hummingbird are also looking elsewhere for flowers, because I just do not fill the feeders regularly. Here are a couple of recent shots in my garden. For more photos go to my GALLERY: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Amazilia tzacatl.

¡Pura Vida!

Quirky Healthcare Update

After my long battle with a skin infection that included 5 nights in two different public hospital emergency rooms (for IV antibiotics & quite an adventure), then 5 more days at home with home-healthcare IV drips of antibiotics, and finally 10 more days of an oral antibiotic, I was perfectly over that infection and back to “normal” except for a persistent cough which I figured was a cold I picked up in the hospitals.

Well . . . the other morning (in addition to coughing & blowing my nose) I was running a high temperature and went to my local private doctor (quicker, with more options than public) who with blood and urine evaluations and a chest x-ray determined that I have “atypical” pneumonia (kind of like the “bronchitis” or “borderline pneumonia” that I’ve had off and on all of my adult life). And she said I almost definitely picked it up in the hospital (“best place in the world to catch pneumonia”) instead of just a “cold.” 🙂

I got an IV drip while in the doc’s office and I’m on ten days of a different oral antibiotic (lung-focused) plus she had just learned about a new medication that strengthens your lungs and helps prevent pneumonia or bronchitis and she thought I was the perfect candidate for that. So I also started taking it, PROBIOCYAN, Lactobacilius plantarum DR7 1×10(9) UFC Zinc 5mg, (made in Costa Rica) once a day for 30 days and then I’ll have Superman Lungs! 🙂

I’m getting better at choosing between private and public healthcare and always have the “free” public care to fall back on, but sometimes like this, my gut feeling is to go private. While my financial status is such that all future hospitals or surgeries will have to be with public healthcare and I’m so thankful to have both options! (Medicare doesn’t work outside the U.S.)

And when I see my “GP” in the local public clinic in November, I will update him on all of this for the excellent computer system records, which of course already have those two public hospital emergency room visits recorded and the reasons. Any doctor in the public system can see everything in my public healthcare record which helps them to help me.

Though no system is perfect, I am so thankful to be in a country that takes the health of its residents seriously with a world-leading public healthcare system! Though not as expensive as in the states, private doctors and hospitals here are still mostly for the rich here with medical insurance for an 85 year old simply unaffordable and then it only pays a percentage. So that was nixed. But I do pay a small monthly fee for the public healthcare system some call “health insurance,” (just like I still pay for the Medicare I can’t use) and it is required for any legal resident to pay this fee. I use an “auto-pay” system for that and I also pay for my Nicaraguan immigrant maid’s healthcare fee, also by auto pay. So I’m doing my part for a healthy country! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!