A Perfectly Wonderful ER Visit to Hospital Inmaculada in Granada

Imagine coming home late at night from an ER visit and feeling an urge to compose a reverie.

I woke up with a pain radiating from the top of my head to my right ear, with a strange excruciating pain especially in my hair follicles, as if a horse had been trying to pull my hair our while I slept.

I took two aspirin, put castor oil on my scalp, a piece of raw garlic in my ear, but by evening, when my son came over, the pain was worsening to the point of agony, so we went to the hospital.

The same hospital I already worshipped, since they restored, over three surgeries, my son’s leg, (tibia and fibula) shattered in a climbing accident eight years ago. The one with the open window, which I’ve written about, with the staff who brought me a breakfast tray on my first morning, after I slept on a sofa in my son’s room. They gave me sheets, blanket, pillow…I slept beneath that open window. My first impressions of Spain. I was speechless.

Where was all the trauma, confusion, fear-mongering, and constant over-complication that was supposed to come with hospital care? Not one single doctor regaled me with how bad the situation was. It’s very difficult to explain what I am trying to describe.

They brought me, that first morning, a packet of instant coffee with warm milk, and all kinds of fresh, real food for breakfast, including fruit, avocado, tomatoes…

After months of surgeries and rehabilitation, the bill was 00.00.

My son had student insurance he’d bought for maybe $200 euros.

I owe the staff of this particular hospital my life, for the way they saved my son’s leg. How can I express it?

By writing this, I guess.

I started thinking about “health care,” and realized there is, quite simply, a benign and rational spirit here, that runs the hospitals. Nothing Bernie Sanders could ever do could impart this spirit to the US “health care” system, with its infinite, unnecessary, expensive and criminally overpriced over-reactions to human ailments. You have to enter a hospital in Spain to behold it. Everybody is calm, same, normal and competent.

We walked in to the spotless, quiet lobby. I was by this time cupping my ear and gasping from the pain. Insurance card, passport number, ticket with our number, room with orange chairs, less than a one minute wait, and we were called in.

Blood pressure checked. Back to the waiting room. Another…maybe 45 seconds, and my name was called again. The female doctor read my chart, checked my ear, found nothing, and suggested IV anti-inflammatory with some kind of sedative. I was asked if I wanted intravenous or intramuscular. I said intravenous.

I was hooked up in another minute or two, and as soon as three different bags of whatever it was had dripped through, they wheeled me off for an MRI.

By this time, the pain had lessened by about 70%

Results normal. A doctor called us in and gave me a prescription for 3 days of anti-inflammatory, one tomorrow, then a half, for two more days.

“I love this hospital,” I said, a little groggy.

I actually, literally do. I remembered its corridors and waiting rooms so well, its vending machine, and on our way out, one of the staff remembered my son, and got a look at his healed leg.

The medical staff, nurses, techs, doctors—make a fraction of what they would make in the US.

They don’t know how lucky they are. I try to tell them.

My life’s ER visits, for self, family, and friends, are all in New York City, as a point of comparison, so you can imagine the contrast.

Bernie Sanders needs to stop talking about Denmark and instead talk about Spain. It’s these spirits though, I am certain, and not “socialized” health care alone.

The history? The soil? What could it be? How were spirits of greed, abuse and murder kept out of this place, leaving only competent doctors and nurses doing their jobs—doing only what is called for, not everything under the sun, that nobody really needs?

They can talk about universal health care cost until they’re all blue in the face but it’s those benign Spanish hospital spirits that make the thing.

Not trying to demoralize Americans but how often do we speak of extreme degradation, trauma, and even murder in American “health care” settings.

If somebody tells me they killed people here for bounty money during Covid I will be unable to believe it.

The “vaccine?” Yes, they certainly fell for that. But I tell myself the benign hospital spirits made the impact less deadly. Perhaps the statistics will prove me wrong, if I look.

I just needed to pen this love letter, before sleep.

3:34 am now.

Oh, and we made a new T-shirt, while waiting for the arm drip to finish:

Truth Barrier Store here.