Is this a soap opera, or am I in the hospital?

Last week, the dengue carrying mosquitoes decided to start biting my friends. First one down was Janna. She was sleeping at my house for a few days and started to feel horrible. I thought I was getting sick too, but the nauseousness just turned out to be due to an insane taxi driver. Anyway, Janna got sicker and sicker, until our faithful nurse brought her to the hospital where stage 2 dengue was confirmed. Not only normal, horrible achy-body, fever dengue. Nope- she had the danger of Hemoragic Dengue- which meant she needed to stay in the hospital with a daily blood test to examine her platelets. I could get into so much detail.. I learned a lot about this disease! But that's not all. Meanwhile, Nikki, Janna's roommate, wasn't feeling so great either. Heather next took her to the hospital for more blood tests. Janna came home a few days later. Then, Heather moved out of her house and back to Canada!

Besides an insane amount of Dengue and trips to the hospital, believe it or not, that's not the point of this blog. My title is "Is this a soap opera?" and I should now get into the good part. Nikki and I went back to the hospital to get a blood test and see if she needed to be hospitalized. We're greeted by this "doctor" who seemed to think he is in a real-life

"novela" with his sleek combed back hair and intense gaze. He tells us a little about Dengue (which we already know from the Janna episode 2 days earlier), but when a nurse walks in to the ER, he blows her kisses and says "mi amor". Turning back to us, he continues pontificating. Then Nikki is directed to an ER bed where a nervous kid tries to give her an IV, mumbling "no puedo (I can't) no puedo". perfect. I gave him a piece of my mind, thinking that if Nikki has hemoragic Dengue, any bleeding can be dangerous!! the "kid" says "oh no, she's fine...." I say "oh yes, it's serious!!"... and he finds someone more capable. Some more pricks later, me getting lightheaded and dizzy from the stress, and Nikki holding up like a champ, I was informed that all 4 of the Semi-private rooms were taken. "What do you want to do?" they asked me. What could we do? Finally with a needle in her arm, we weren't changing hospitals. They plopped Nikki into a wheelchair made for short Ecuadorians, forcing her to either stick her legs straight and trip everyone in sight, or do a little prancing move to not run over her own feet. We made it upstairs to a room of about 25 beds in tiny cubicles with curtains. And there we lived for 2 days.

During those 2 days, we were visited by nurses wanting to look at the pretty gringa... and doctors wanting to talk to the pretty gringas, and more doctors wanting to take pictures of the pretty gringas.... Finally (after much pleading and begging), Nikki was transfered to a semi private room that she shared with 1 other lady. It was much more comfortable to stay there, with room to sit and talk, and a TV to see news of the Royal wedding. We waited out those 2 days, rallying for Nikki's platelets to raise, and begging doctors to read her charts and let her go home. Seriously begging. After eating some healthy meals brought from home, Nikki was able to leave with her platelets on the raise.

We just heard that Heather has spent her first few days in Canada sharing Dengue with the doctors in the hospital there. I'm hoping that these deadly little guys aren't targeting me next, and am enjoying a smelly, freshly fumigated house.