12/5/07

So I woke up this morning expecting to spend most of the day at the hospital. My stomach pains seem to have increased or rather I should say my worry that something actually bad is wrong has increased so I walked over to the hospital to have it checked. I am glad I had recently purchased a new book. Thanks to the Portuguese medical system I am 122 pages into it already and it only took me 4 hours for the doctor to tell me he thinks it is just muscle problems. A chest xray and ultrasound came up clean so apparently I am healthy. He prescribed some muscle relaxers and said see what happens. So now I have had one doctor say ulcer, one doctor say gall bladder, one doctor say maybe ulcer maybe gall bladder and now muscles. Well I guess the only good thing out of all these doctor visits is it has only cost me a total of 20euros for all that. Wow socialized medicine is great! I could only guess what an emergency room visit with xrays and ultrasounds would cost at home.

So not only do I have side pains still, but I have a cough to go along with it on my birthday. I have spent the rest of the day at the hotel laying in bed since it is raining and cold out anyway. I just finished my last downloaded movie (300 which was great) and now a little nap and hopefully I will be ready to go out with Kikas and friends for a birthday dinner and drink.