The pain in Spain falls mainly . . . in between the fourth and pinkie toes on the right foot. Max’s right foot, to be exact. This pain in Spain comes mainly from . . . the Mediterranean Spiderfish. (No wonder Rogers and Hammerstein didn’t use Mediterranean Spiderfish as a rhyming scheme to teach Eliza Doolittle the Queen’s Proper English – the rain falling on the plain is far easier.) In case, for some odd reason, you are not an aficionado of the Mediterranean Spiderfish, it happens to be the most plentiful fish occupying depths less than 1000 meters on the Catalan shelf of the Western Mediterranean Sea. But who doesn’t know that? What might surprise you to learn is that the nasty little bugger packs a long set of tentacle stingers on its dorsal side that when they make contact with the human foot – in this case, Max’s human foot – cause piercing pain that morphs into extreme burning pain.
Max and Jeff had been spending a pleasant afternoon frolicking in a bay that’s just outside of the town of Moriara, Spain, where we are doing another house exchange. Moriara is halfway between Valencia and Alicante on the Spanish coast, right on the edge of the knobby bit of Spain that sticks out into the Mediterranean Sea. I say that Jeff and Max, and not all three of us, were playing in the water because I had hauled my weary bones back to our house exchange apartment to attempt to get some sleep. Why was I weary? Because I had slept not a wink the night before. This was due to the unfortunate confluence of three unpleasant factors: first, every hungry mosquito on the Iberian Peninsula had flown into the apartment and was busy taking turns at the mosquito hoedown that was taking place on my exposed flesh. Second, not a molecule of air was moving in the bedroom, adding a stifling element to the mosquito banquet which I think the insects really appreciated. And third, the beds in the “master” bedroom of this vile-la -- oh, I mean “villa” – are two single campbeds, the kinds of beds you haul out of the garage when Aunt Agatha and Uncle Ferd and their five kids come to stay for a week in the summer. The beds are twin-sized, which is a luxurious width when you are still too little to be able to go on most carnival rides, but is a good deal less luxurious when you’re a full-grown adult. From the looks of it, the mattresses were evidently purchased at a time when the sun still did not set on the British Empire, and from the sounds of it, the mattresses are packed with a million pieces of crinkly paper. Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle goes the mattress when you turn over (careful not to exceed the 2 inches of clearance you have on either side of your body.) Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle goes the mattress every time you swat violently at the mosquito couples doe-see-doeing down your back. Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle with each indrawn breath, crinkle, crinkle, crinkle with each exhalation.
Not surprisingly, the vile-la was not advertised as such on the house exchange website. And some elements of it are fine. The size is fine, the little yard is fine, its proximity to the town is fine. All fine. What’s not so fine are the aforementioned camp beds in the “master” bedroom and the claustrophobic bunk beds in the second room which, coincidentally, is a room the size of a set of bunkbeds, give or take a few inches. I’ve seen linen closets larger than the bunkbed room, which Max is gamely occupying, sandwiched between the upper bunk which is a scant eight inches above his face, and the walls which are a scant six inches from his body when he’s in bed. As they say in Appalachia, “this here room is right cosy.”
Another thing not so fine is the plethora of signs posted around the vile-la warning us to be extremely economical if not downright abstemious in our water use. This is not because the totally uncontrolled development that has swallowed up the Spanish coast and sprawled out over the hills and climbed up every nook and cranny adjacent to the sea is sucking dry the aquifers of the land. No, that is a different problem. The problem that we face is attributable to the fact that the vile-la is not on the city’s sewer system and if you flush a lot of water down the drain, it can back up the septic tank right into the vile-la itself, adding another element of vileness to the whole affair. Needless to say, this is a strong incentive for extremely quick showers, as is the fact that you can’t control the water temperature: it vacillates from teeth-chattering Antarctica to a solar storm.
So what with this and that, I had collapsed in the bedroom to the sound of many crinkles while Jeff and Max frolicked in the bay. Until Max, jumping up to catch the ball, landed back down right on top of Mr. Mediterranean Spiderfish who apparently objected to this treatment rather strongly, and made his feelings known by stinging the holy crap out of Max’s foot. Jeff and Max came staggering back into the vile-la with Max actually shuddering with pain. Now Max is not a whiner when it comes to physical discomfort. I have seen him catch air during a soccer game and land with a thud that sounds as if a wheelchair and breathing tube will be in his immediate future, and the boy will shrug it off. Jeff is the same way: the man can cut himself, slam his head into a low-hanging beam and otherwise hurt himself calamitously and also shrug it off. As for me, well – I was in labor and didn’t realize it: just thought it was part of the general discomfort one should expect when one is seven hundred months pregnant.
So between Max’s genetic heritage and his own innate toughness, seeing him shaking with pain ratcheted the situation from an oh-that’s-too-bad level to a how-do-you-say-emergency-room-in-Spanish? response. Plus we had no idea that the irate spiderfish was to blame, having never heard of same, so we didn’t know what was making Max weep and shudder. Into the car we piled and off to a nearby farmacia, where Jeff managed to get directions to an emergency clinic which, according to the pharmacist, was located off in – vague wave of the hand – that direction. Off we went in that direction, which covered an area from the Spanish coast to Atlantic City, New Jersey. After exploring a lot of this direction and a fair amount of the other direction, we finally found that direction and roared into the empty parking lot of what appeared to be a medical, dental or possibly veterinarian clinic. A woman was just leaving in her car, and she put it in reverse and came over to talk to Jeff, who was standing and peering through the locked front door of the body/tooth/critter building. He explained to her that “son-foot-ow-hurt-help” in a mixture of Spanish-English-Mime (SPEM, for short) And she sighed, parked her car and let us in, the kind soul. She was the nurse, just leaving after a long day. She steered Max into an examining room, asked him a few questions in functioning English, got the doctor on the phone who talked directly to Max and diagnosed the spiderfish sting over the phone, and within 15 minutes we were walking out of the door, Max’s foot cleaned, treated with an antiseptic salve, securely bandaged and instructions for foot care provided. The cost? 35 Euros – about 50 dollars.
Now hands up if you know the answer to these questions!
#1: Did anyone ask to see an insurance card before granting treatment? No.
#2: Did anyone ask for a credit card imprint to ensure payment before granting treatment? No.
#3: Was there a wait? No.
#4: Were the nurse in person, and the doctor via telephone, kind and efficient? Yes.
#5: Was the payment ridiculously small? Yes.
#6: Does Spain, like most European nations, have national health care? Yes.
Therefore, boys and girls, answer me this: was this experience in any way, shape or form like anything we would have had in Washington, DC, the capitol of the most powerful nation in the world, even though we have full health insurance coverage for which we pay a small fortune? NO. No, it was not.
So clearly, this was an example of why national health care is bad and why treatment under it is appalling and why we would never, ever want to trade in our own dear health care system in America for something like this. Whew! Glad we cleared that up!
So join me in singing an ode to Spain and its health care system, which we’ll never get in America as long as the insurance industry and pharmaceutical lobbyists continue to control the majority of Congress. I think you can guess the tune it’s set to!
Treating pain in Spain
Doesn’t cause all your savings to go
Right down the drain!
Right down the drain!
Treating pain in Spain
Is what we call, a no
A no-brain(er)!
Now once again, who charges amounts of money to treat the ill
that are quite insane?
It’s Amurika, controlled by lobbyists who are a pain
A giant pain!
So if you’re hurt and need a doc
Better fly, fly off to Spain
Fly off to Spain.
Cuz in the USA you’re screwed,
I’ll say it plain!
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