When Stubbornness Costs You Your Underwear & $525+

Part I

I’m rough. I’m tough. I’m always ready to go. So the idea of getting sick is almost offensive to me. That never happens… Ever!

Before arriving in Guatemala, we bought probiotics to help keep our stomachs healthy. Every morning before eating anything, we’d each drink a vial of the probiotic, and that strategy worked for a while. To this day, I’m not sure what I ate or drank that got me sick, but at that point we were on week 3 at Lake Atitlán, and I thought we had a rock-solid protocol for avoiding illness.

So here is a summary of what happened in week 3:

Day 1: 😁 Ok, I need to poop more often; no big deal.

Carly’s POV: “Oh, no, I hope I don’t get sick. I will give her some Enterogermina.”

Day 2: 😑 Oh, ok, that wasn’t just a one-day thing; I can manage. No worries.

Day 3: 🤨 Again! Uhhh, ok, that’s a little weird, but no need to panic. We got this. 💪

Carly’s POV: “It’s been 3 days, and if it doesn’t get better by tomorrow, I am taking her to urgent care.”

Day 4: 🥹 I’m a grown woman. I can handle anything, I swear.

Day 5: 🙁 Oops, that was not a fart.

Day 6: 🥴 I need to know where all the bathrooms around the lake are located, but other than that I’m sure this will clear up soon. I hope Carly doesn’t notice.

Carly’s POV: “It turns out that the closest urgent care is in San Pedro, and considering the lancha schedule, we would need to plan on when we could get over there. Good thing we planned a day trip the very next day, and I suggested we get her checked out and tested for bacteria or whatever bug might be causing this. Jackie suggested that she was fine and that she didn’t need to go to the urgent care.”

Day 10: 🤮😵‍💫💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩☠️🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚑

Day 10 escalated quickly. I couldn’t sleep all night, but at around 5am I had a sharp pain that could only signal one thing. Luckily, I had just enough energy to go to the bathroom, right before I started spewing from both ends.

Carly’s POV: “In the brief moments between puking and explosive diarrhea, Jackie confidently told me that we shouldn’t cancel our day-long trip to the Mayan ruins that would include a 3-hour drive each way. I sighed deeply, and after a few more trips to the bathroom, she finally let me send the cancellation text. Don’t worry, we finally got to visit a few days later; here is that video.”

It sounds horrifying, and it was. But even then I was totally against going to the doctor. Then Carly stepped in and rescued me from myself. Eventually, I gave in. So how does one find a doctor at 6:30 am?

Carly’s POV: “Lucky for her, I had already texted our favorite tuk-tuk driver to let him know we had an emergency and needed to get to the nearest hospital. The tuk-tuk drivers had very strict laws that forbid them from crossing over into the next town. This trip could make us cross 3 towns to get to the hospital. Luckily, the police let us through; we paid him a premium, and we got to the hospital.

The first challenge was getting her up these rocky, uneven stairs made out of rocks up to the road. You can see an example of that in this video.”

Part II

Carly got me to reach the point where I could finally admit I needed medical attention, but things only got worse when I had to admit to her that I didn’t think I could even make it to the doctor without shitting myself on the way there. It was a devastating blow to my ego.

Carly called our favorite tuk-tuk driver and explained the situation. He said he’d pick us up in 10 minutes. I desperately needed to get my act together in those 10 minutes before his arrival. When our tuk-tuk driver arrived, he told us he was taking us to Dr. Eddy. I got in the tuk-tuk, praying I could keep it together.

Our tuk-tuk driver was a very kind and honest person. When we got into the tuk-tuk, we didn’t know what he was actually doing us a big favor that could have gotten him in trouble. Tuk-tuk drivers are only allowed to drive within city limits, and he was taking us to San Pedro. Typically, drivers drop off passengers in the outskirts of the next village, and the passenger can either walk into the village or take a tuk-tuk that is authorized within that village. We needed to cross three villages to get to the hospital. We drove most of the way with a black curtain covering us as he drove as fast as he could. Carly was constantly asking me if I was okay and assured me we were so close to the hospital.

When we reached the outskirts of San Pedro, our tuk-tuk driver stopped. We peeked through the curtain and saw that he was talking to a police officer and explaining the situation. The police officer walked over and asked us what the situation was. We explained, and she told our driver that he could not enter the city through the main route. He had to take an alternate route, but we made it to the hospital.

Part III

The positive thing about ending up in the hospital early in the morning is that we were the only people there. We filled out some forms and were sent to an exam room quickly after. The nurses took my vitals and ran lab work. Before I knew it, Dr. Eddy came in the room. I told him my symptoms, his team hooked me up to an IV, and he said we needed to wait a few hours for the lab results to come back.

I spent that time switching between the hospital bed and the bathroom. I felt so bad that the nurses had to constantly take me between rooms. When the results came back, Dr. Eddy said this was most likely E. coli. He gave me a prescription for antibiotics, which I was on for 20 days.

And that’s it; that’s how I survived. I’m eternally grateful for our tuk-tuk driver, Dr. Eddy, his nurses and staff, and of course, Carly.

Carly’s POV: “I am so grateful we were able to get her to a medical clinic that quickly because she was getting severely dehydrated. Ultimately, the most important thing is that she got the antibiotics and medical care she needed, but that didn’t come without a price….. I was the one who got the bill for over $525. Yikes!”

There are a lot of things I wish I had done differently regarding my situation. It didn’t need to get that crazy, but I can’t change what happened. One thing we could rectify, though, was getting insurance. We signed up for SafetyWing as soon as we got back home.

Moral of the story: Never play around with your health. Listen to your body.

Carly’s POV: “And most importantly, listen to your girlfriend…”