Finally feeling >90%, the morning walks along the water and the nightly meditations on the beach are helping nurse me back to health.
Yesterday, we planned to finally get out of Catalina’s Condo and head out for dinner after I finished work for the day. Mom still wasn’t feeling great, so instead, I ordered Domino’s pizza for delivery. And before you scoff at ordering from an American chain, hear me out: a) we didn’t have a car to go pick up food, b) UberEats is non-existent in San Jose, and c) the delivery options are literally 2 places and I already ordered from the other one on Monday. Also, if you’ve never tried Domino’s in Mexico, it’s a must. There is some seasoning blend they put on the crust that makes it taste waaaaaaaay better than the kind found in the States. But don’t put on the weird salsa/yogurt sauce packet you get with pizza – it’s disgusting. Mom likes it. But mom also likes Mexican-style hot dogs with lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard & mayo. Super weird. After delicioso pizza, we played Millenial Loteria and drank our medicinal tequila. Mom has started calling me a modern curandera because I have found every kind of alternative treatment for our ailments. We were having a good time soothing our raspy throats with tequila and laughing at the updated versions of the loteria squares – thank goodness there was tequila involved because having to explain to my mom what la d*ck pic was should have been more awkward! And if you don’t know, please don’t Google it. I’m not responsible for what you may find. Jajajaja.
Final score: Mom won 2 games, I won 1. But I noticed she missed a square so I helped her score that 2nd victory. So technically, we’re tied. We retired for the evening and she seemed to be on the mend as well. Seemed is our key word here Reader.
I awoke as normal today, but didn’t feel like taking my morning fresh air walk, so I lounged around a bit before starting work at 9am. I hopped on a work call but could tell something was different about this morning – Mom was in the other room making or receiving numerous phone calls. At this point, not only did my parents catch Covid (from me, or not from me – I don’t need a therapist to help me work through the guilt of being Patient Zero) but my younger brother who picked my dad up at the airport also started showing symptoms. Before anyone jumps to judge, we took as many precautions as we could. Dad took a covid test before flying (it was negative and we made sure he went deep into his nasal cavity), he kept a mask on at the airport and on the plane (Mexico is currently still requiring it, unlike America) and even kept a mask on in the car when he and my brother were driving back from San Diego to Riverside. Perhaps we let our guard down and didn’t disinfect or decontaminate thoroughly enough but this variant is highly contagious. Once my work call was done, Mom came out of her room and uttered the following worrying words: “Mija, I think I need to go to the hospital.” Despite being sick (and not very good at looking things up on the internet), she found an Avis car rental place about 5 minutes away and I booked a reservation on Expedia.
I have successfully avoided driving in a foreign country up to this point; that’s 32 different places I’ve taken public transportation, pretended to know my Uber driver when Uber is illegal or gotten swindled by greedy taxi drivers in Portugal. But duty calls and when your Mom/ride-or-die BFF needs help, you put your big girl panties on and get it done. Shooting off a text message to my boss, I took an Uber to Avis and picked up my car. I made friends with the girl who was helping me and she gave me her personal cell phone number in case I had any questions or problems. See, I make friends wherever I go! My nerves started to kick in a little because drivers in Mexico are LOCO (her word, not mine). And there’s a crazy roundabout that has traffic coming fast and furiously in all directions. But having been a passenger multiple times, I knew which way to go and with the fearlessness my Mom instilled in me, off I went! Clearly, I survived driving in Mexico and am actually pretty good at it. I could definitely live here!
I picked her up, having to explain to all the security guards at the condo complex who I was (Amy, renting unit F106, Maye is my aunt, etc) and off to urgent care we went. The same urgent care I went to exactly one week ago. Our experiences there couldn’t have been more different. While I was seen pretty quickly and sent home to rest in less than 2 hours, today we waited for about 2 hours before a nurse came out to give us some crappy news: the hospital/urgent care could only accommodate 1 covid patient at a time. And there was another patient sicker than my mom who was already occupying the “covid room.” They were waiting to transfer that patient to a bed upstairs and the nurse estimated it would be another 2 hour wait, at a minimum. So we walked to the food court (masked up, avoiding crowds) and split a cheeseburger & fries – again, our options were limited. After lunch, we got gelato which is also helpful for achy throats and went back to the urgent care waiting room where we sat for another 4 hours. That’s not a typo – we were in the waiting room for 6 hours without having seen anyone! Defeated and utterly exhausted, we left without getting mom the antibiotics she needs since we believe it’s the same kind of infection I had. So while Mom instilled fearlessness in me, Dad instilled resourcefulness and we have a pretty good solution to get what we need — we just need a little help from the Universe.
Back home, and back to modern curandera treatments, we are determined to get the Mamacita better again! Don’t tell us no; we’ll just find our own way. Dad is much better these days and my younger brother has an appointment for the Paxlovid treatment on Friday. As my older brother tells us, “Gonzales’ are like cockroaches” and we’ll kick covid’s butt. La cucaracha, la cucaracha, Ya no puede caminar, porque le falta, porque no tiene, gasolina para manejar.
There She Goes... 