"...and she´s OK!"

Some of you are dying to read details of my ailment, so here goes:

Tough as I am, I ignored the first pain spell in Quevedo, a stopover town on our way to the coast, where I experienced shortness of breath, stabbing chest and upper back pains and nausea. The pain finally subsided and allowed for a restful sleep. We awoke and left for Puerto Lopez feeling great. After an amazing day on Isla De La Plata, I began experiencing the same pain. P hired a tuktuk to drive us to the nearest doctor, who injected me with some pain meds and said nothing more than a guess at a digestive problem. OK, next morning, same episode! Off to a different doctor recommended to us by our hostel owner, luckily, this time, we were accompanied by a friendly, fluent Spanish speaker from the States, who overheard P´s frantic conversation asking for a doctor in town and offered to help (thank you Rebecca!). Dr. Olga gave me another painful injection for pain, felt my abdomen and said we needed to get to a hospital ASAP. The problem was that the nearest hospital was 2 hours away by car, 4 hours by bus! Dr.Olga said she knew a guy who´d take us for 40 bucks, we accepted, Rebecca was so nice to come along to help (and keep P calm). We arrived at the hospital in Manta with an order for a sonogram. The doctor placed the camera on my upper abdomen to reveal many stones in my gall bladder, he looked at us and said "need surgery, immediately" and I began to lose my mind. P, calm and composed, called our travel insurance company and asked all the right questions, she returned with great news- we can go anywhere for the surgery and we´re covered. Of course we thought of returning to NYC on the next flight, but I couldn´t stand the pain and I needed to be in a hospital as soon as possible. We thought heading back to Quito was our best bet- best hospitals, best friends, an apartment to return to, a familiar place and the list goes on. Luckily enough, Manta has an airport with frequent flights to Quito, it was that or a 12 hour bus ride! We bought tickets at the airport and took a 40 minute flight back to Quito where Belen and Diego awaited our arrival. They took us straight to the hospital. My skin and eye color was now changing for a yellow tint, not too attractive. After being admitted and having blood samples read, the doctors informed us that a stone has left the gall bladder, an MRI was needed to find out where it has gone before surgery can be performed. Results suggested I needed an endoscopy procedure to locate and remove the stone before my gall bladder could be removed. I was now very yellow, but with little pain considering I had an IV in each wrist. It wasn´t until the second day in the hospital that the endoscopy was performed with success and late that same night the surgery, also successful. We had a pleasant experience in the hospital for 5 days, it only took them 2 days to understand that P is a vegetarian and what that means (rice and carrots in this case), but they made up for it by giving us an amazing room with a flat screen TV and a pull out couch for P´s comfort (she slept in an upright chair the first night, what a trooper!). The hospital was great, nurses were very attentive, doctors were so sincere and helpful, even the cleaning staff tried to take our mind off things by asking us every question imaginable! We weren´t allowed to be discharged until I stopped vomitting, which thankfully happened towards the end of day 4. We got the great news early on day 5, we can go home! We are now back in our Quito apartment until I´m allowed to fly. In a few weeks we´ll fly south to Peru and continue on our journey.