A Touchy Cough...

After my pre-school exam I was sent out to the rig for a little more than a week. I arrived just as I was starting to get a cold and rigging up in the rain then lack of sleep from switching to night shift schedule meant that I very quickly got really sick. After 5 or 6 days my crew got sick of hearing me cough and I was having trouble keeping enough energy to get through my 12 hour shifts. My coworker finally called a car to take me to see the doctor. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so going to the doctor meant going to the emergency room. 

Now one reason I chose Villahermosa over my other Russia offer is that Villahermosa is said to have some of the best hospitals outside of Mexico City. I can now confirm that they do seem very nice. I walked in with my coveralls still on and announced that I didn’t speak much Spanish but I was sick and wanted to see a doctor.

My rig Spanish is definitely getting up to a sufficient level and I can communicate everything I need there. However, medicine was a new region of Spanish I hadn’t explored before. I saw the doctor and explained that it was hard to breathe and “No puedo dormir porque yo toque todo vez”.  Now what I thought I said was “I can’t sleep because I cough all the time”.  What I actually said was “I can’t sleep because I touch all the time”.  I’m not really sure what they thought I was trying to say.  Anyway, cough is tos and toque is touch.  Apparently easy to confuse. 

After examining me and apparently coming to some conclusion I didn’t understand someone came and gave me a shot.  Then the doctor gave me a prescription for like 5 medicines and explained as best he could what they were and how to use them.  My favorite was the antibiotics given by a shot for 5 days.  Luckily, every rig has an ambulance on standby so I was able to have a paramedic come and give me a shot once a day. Still, it was a little awkward to stop work, get a shot (given, by the way, into my gluteus maximus muscle making me very sore and sitting a little uncomfortable), then go back to work.

Luckily for me, I arrived back at the rig and took one survey, got my shot, and then my tool failed downhole.  I worked for about 3 hours total before we had to start pulling the tool back out of well, meaning I could go sleep!  The next day I was sent back to Villahermosa to finish all my paperwork and catch my flight to Abu Dhabi. I’m not sure what was in those shots but I made a pretty full recovery and managed to get on the plane feeling normal again!