Las venas abiertas de Valdivia

I'll be heading into surgery tomorrow, assuming my platelet levels are up around 20-30,000. They're treating me with intravenous immunoglobulin to spike the levels. This only lasts for a few days, but is supposed to get my level up to a level where it is supposed to operate. If I'm still low, they will give me a platelet transfusion before surgery just to make sure. In order to get a good amount of platlets, I need many blood donors, and so I have asked basically everyone in the study abroad program and all of the friends I have made in Valdivia to come and donate blood for me. Dad went out and got cookies and juice for everyone, and they should all be coming in today to donate. In addition, I get to start all kinds of fun pre-surgery treatment today like something to completely flush out my bowel, since it is close to the spleen. Hopefully that won't coincide with  20 friends arriving.

Big thanks in advance to everyone who comes by today. I can't wait to get out of here. Some more photos from the hospital:

¡El gringo vampiro!

Vistas de habitación 126. Luz al amanacer.

Intensive Seminar in Medical Vocabulary

Before I dive into this I just want to say that I'm going to be FINE. Deep breath, everyone.

For a little more than a week I have been hospitalized in Valdivia with an autoimmune condition which has caused my platelets to fall to very low levels. The condition is called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpora, and out of my own vanity I will just say that my skin never looked anything like most of the photos you will see online if you do go googling around for that. Mainly I was bruising very easily, and had some faint spots on my legs.

Unfortunately, I have not responded to the steroid treatment which usually corrects this issue, and the next course of action is to remove my spleen. This is a very safe, minimally invasive procedure that is done laporoscopically. It is, as far as organ removal goes, risk-free. My recovery time will be a few days, and this will at least bring my platelet levels up to a safe level, and most of the time patients return to a fully normal level. Your spleen is not a vital organ, but does aid your immune system, so moving forward in life I will have to be diligent about my health, get some extra vaccinations, always get my flu shot, and seek care for mild illnesses that I otherwise would have treated by drinking more orange juice.

The facility I am in, the Clinica Alemana, is one of the best medical facilities in Latin America. The staff is incredibly good, and my hematologist is the most respected blood specialist in the city. The surgeon is great and speaks fluent English, which has been a comfort as we move towards this. The surgery will happen Wednesday or Thursday. I will send you all another note or two as I continue through this process. The health insurance through my study abroad program is paying for my dad's round trip airfare to be here with me this week, which will be a huge comfort.

I just wanted, mainly, to let you, my family, close friends, people who have touched my life or shaped me as an individual, know what is going on, and to tell you that I would not be facing this situation with the optimism, hope, and courage that I am without the light that each of you has shone into my heart. I truly appreciate each of you, and feel incredibly blessed that you have been a part of my life. It's mushy, I know.

P.S. The food is fantastic, I get 4 meals a day, and several of my meals have been some of the best things I've eaten in Chile. This is always everyone's first question for me. I'm unclear if this is because they know how much I like to put delicious things in my mouth, or because we have all had such terrible experiences with hospital food.

I just reposted this from facebook, wanted to keep the blog current on the situation. Here's some photos though:

The view from my room, and a card made for me by my buddy Jake, a truly stand-up individual.

Me rocking the gown.

A friend visiting, shortly before I beat her at scrabble. In Spanish.

Oh, and Go Giants.

This is my breakfast, some bread with cheese and pastries, coffee and tea. I don't eat the feet.

Typical lunch, chicken soup, salmon with scalloped potatoes, green bean salad with cheese, and some random dessert which I probably didn't eat. 

This is our 'nana,' the woman who helps the family at the house I'm living. She's a wonderful person, for many reasons, not just because she does my laundry and makes my bed every day.

Dinner, beet and corn salad, breaed pork chop with grilled zuchini, tomato bisque, some unidentified fruit (i think it was an apple? it was weird) in syrup.

Desayuno

We have been out of eggs for a few days, and also only had decaf, and my mornings have been, umm, not the best. Today though there was a new flat of eggs waiting for us, and I got to meet the guy who sells them to the family, who was really nice. It's very cool to have someone bring over fresh eggs from his chickens, and know that they are not living in a tiny cage with no beaks or whatever. Also, look how pretty they are!

Curiñanco

The weekend before last we had our first excursion, which was to a nature reserve on the coast, about 45 minutes north of Valdivia. It was really beautiful. Similar to the Oregon coast, there was a forest extending to the cliffs overlooking the ocean, where the waves crashed into rocky outcrops sending huge plumes of spray high into the air. When we first arrived it was clear, and there were some great views of the ocean and cliffs:

We then headed into the forest, and while we were in there, the fog rolled in THICK. When we returned to this same viewpoint, you couldn't see a thing. It was just a wall of white, you couldn't see the cliffs or anything. It was cool though, because the fog looked really amazing in the forest:

After this, we headed back into the village con gran dientes (literally large teeth, but an expression for having a large appetite) and had a delicious lunch at a little restaurant with what was supposed to be a lovely view of the ocean, but all we could see was a whiteout of fog. We sat down to mussels and some amazing seafood soup. I felt really bad for the various vegetarians who are on the trip, because this was some of the best food I've eaten on the trip.

Mussels!

School

And time flies.

Classes have started. I'm taking 3 courses while I'm here, as well as volunteering for the American Corner, which is a club in the library to help the Chilean students practice their English. The courses are a survey of contemporary Latin American literature, a survey of Latin American cinema, and a political science class: Relaciones Internacionales entre Los Estados Unidos y América Latina. The rest of the students also have to take a composition class, but having already taken both the Intensive Grammar Review and Advanced Writing courses in the Spanish program at the U of O, I don't have to take it, which gives me a good amount of free time to explore the city and be out speaking instead of sitting in a classroom. I'm using this free time to help out a company in town that teaches English, which will be great experience when I make my way back down here after graduation to do just that while I continue to hone my Spanish skills.

Homework has been sparse so far. I've had one assignment, which was to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Tough, I know. Especially since I've already seen it twice. The cinema class has been fun, we've watched a couple films our professor made, which ordinarily I would object to, but they were both shot quite beautifully, if they were a little boring. Last week our Relaciones Internacionales professor gave us a humongous stack of reading, which we have a couple months to get through before our mid-term in November. One of the readings is a declassified report on the USA's covert actions in Chile leading up to and during the 1973 coup d'etat. It's kind of humorous, many of the conservative people in Chile who are wealthy due to the policies and economic development during the dictatorship deny that there was US involvement, and here we are reading a 15 page report that was presented to the US senate in 1975. Our literature class thus far has been reading pre-colombian literature from the Americas, which is not contemporary, and I have already studied in depth. It's kind of frustrating, I've been looking forward to finally getting to read some works from the Latin American Boom. Whatever.

Tiempo libre en Valdivia antes de la empieza de clases

I arrived in Valdivia on Thursday, after a short flight from Santiago. It was definitely nice to just have a short jaunt down here, as opposed to making the whole trip at once. I have, though, come down with a mild cold. I'm blaming the air quality in Santiago. I still was able to explore the town and take some photos in the day and a half I had before our orientation today. Most of the students arrived yesterday, and so most have yet to get out into the town. Everyone is meeting up later tonight to go out in town, since tomorrow we are free to relax and recover from travel and what will surely be a ridiculous night.

There were a few other students on the day early flight to Valdivia with me, and we have had a good time wandering around Valdivia, which is incredibly beautiful. The school and my host family's house is located on Isla Teja, and it is a short walk across the bridge into the city center. Valdivia is the capital city of the Los Rios region of Chile, which includes 14 major rivers, which all converge before flowing out past Valdivia and into the Pacific Ocean. It is majestic. Colorful boats line the shores near the bridge. There is even a big submarine which is now a museum.

Today we had our orientation for the study abroad program, I spoke Spanish nearly all day, and felt pretty damn good about it. There was definitely some bumps in there, but I feel like it's coming quickly. We went and got a fantastic almuerzo (lunch, and pretty much the only meal that seems to matter in Valdivia) at Agridulce, which was paid for by the program and was quite nice. Everyone seems legit, I had a truly fantastic day, and am looking forward to tonight. I'm going to lay down for a couple of hours.

Monkey tree, one of many growing around town. Truly bizarre.

Just some pretty stuff on my way to the bridge yesterday.

These guys deliver on scooters, which are unfortunately not designed in similar abstract fashion.

The view from the Isla Teja side of the bridge of the center of town, the fishmarket, and some lobos marinos, which are seals, but look a little different than the ones I remember from California.

The central church on the right, as seen from the docks.

I'm on a boat.

I'm on a submarine.

Valdivia!

¡Santiago!

My voyage to Valdivia, Chile, started out with a 5 day layover in Santiago, where I hung out with my dear friend Chris, enjoyed a taste of Chilean language, culture, and history, and explored a fantastic city. The legendary pollution was not terrible while I was there, though it was overcast most days. One day, when we walked around downtown it was clear enough to see the majestic cordillera of the Andes which serve as a backdrop to this amazing city. It was incredibly fortunate that I had scheduled this layover, because when I arrived, my checked luggage was still in Los Angeles, and because I was in Santiago they were able to deliver it to me at Chris's house the next day. The first delivery was actually not my bag, and me and Chris had to chase down the delivery man before he took off and I was stuck with someone else's luggage, but they eventually figured things out, and I now am in Chile with more than one outfit to wear over the next 4 months.

In Santiago I saw the city center and the capital which was bombed in the 1973 coup, and all of that touristy stuff. But really, the most impressive part of my time in Santiago was the living situation Chris has fallen into. He's living with 5 older guys, several of whom were very involved in the struggle against Pinochet. It's not my place to elaborate on the specifics of their activities, but suffice it to say they have some interesting stories to tell about the dictadura, and that Chris has learned a lot about himself and his political beliefs by living there. Visiting Chris was really amazing, it was impressive to see how much he has grown in his time abroad, and  was inspiring to see how much his Spanish has advanced in the last year. I thus left Santiago full of inspiration  about my studies in Valdivia, full of zest for life, and feeling that I had recharged my connection with one of my best friends.

On the somewhat related culture side, I also watched two movies, one directly related and one somewhat related. The new film "No," starring Gaél García Bernál, about the popular vote in 1988 whether or not Pinochet's dictatorship should continue, I watched in a cool little theater in Santiago with Chris. It was, I'm afraid to report, underwhelming, too long, and one of the least attractively shot films I've ever seen. The cinematographer was aiming for some sort of washed out, backlit theme, which was taken vastly too far, and in many scenes, even when people were talking, you couldn't see what the hell was going on. It was like you were just being bombarded by blinding light the entire time, and film, unlike the human eye, doesn't adjust to that. Anyway. Gael García, was, as always, fantastic. I also watched the German movie Good Bye Lenin with Chris and a few of his roommates, and it was great. Funny, interesting, poignant, well-filmed, just super bacan. ¿Catchai?

I promise more photos will accompany future blog posts. After a certain run-in with some thieves in Bogota with Robin, I was hesitant to bandy my camera around in Santiago. Valdivia is relatively quaint, and I have felt pretty comfortable taking photos around town, many of which I will post tomorrow. In the meantime, here's some shots of Chris at his Trapeze class, and a really neat mural which was on the wall of the school where the class was.