nothin but a champ.

I have now experienced my first doctors visit in Gracias. Needless to say it was a very interesting experience. So my stomach starting hurting Sunday afternoon. Every time I would eat something I would have this excruciating pain in my stomach and it would last for hours. So eventually I just stopped eating on Monday because I'd rather be hungry then having a knot in my stomach. So this morning I went to the clinic. Another teacher, Ryan, joined me to translate. So I had to awkwardly lay on a doctors bed where the doctor, my student Jonathan's dad, dug his fingers around in my stomach with my shirt pulled up while Ryan stood next to him translating… 2 dudes just staring at my stomach. He wanted me to tell him when it hurt, but I'm pretty sure it would have hurt any healthy person because his fingers were all up in my organ's business. So 5 minutes after digging around and head nodding, he decided that my colon was swollen and that I had a parasite and started writing me a prescription. So I'm thinking "Awesome, the girls made their clinic visits seem so awful and I'm getting off easy!" So he hands me the prescription then starts saying something in spanish and I hear the word 'but' in there and Ryan delivers the bad news to me… "He still needs you to poop in a cup to make sure you don't have bacteria in your colon". I wanted to cry. So we have to go to laboratory to get the smallest cup ever and a wad of toilet paper. The bathroom is all the way across the campus where about 20 Hondurans are waiting for the doctor. Of course everyone is staring at me which is a normal every day thing since we are gringos. So I go into the smallest/dirtiest bathroom ever. I decided that I'm not going to leave the bathroom until I get something in that dang cup. About 10 minutes later I leave the bathroom feeling like a champion. I wont get too graphic on you but lets just say this was a very difficult task. I wrapped some toilet paper around the cup so the nosy Hondurans couldn't get a peek. I wasn't even embarrassed walking back thru the crowd of people holding my poo in a cup because I was just so proud of myself… 30 minutes later.. it is a parasite and no bacteria was involved. I named my parasite Frankie and started on my meds right away. I'm sure this is the first of many Frankies that will come into my life and I now feel like a true Honduran.