Doing What the Heart Dictates
HAVANA TIMES – I had a horrible headache. I’ve always suffered from them, but of course now they’re more extreme. My cousin says that with the times we’re living through, even those who never had headaches are experiencing them now.
Life is far from normal with the six-hour blackouts — and sometimes you don’t even know when the electricity will come or go, since they cut it off an hour earlier or two hours later. You can’t cook when you should, you can’t work on the computer when you plan to, you can’t do any number of activities when you want to, but only when you can, and that sets a maddening pace.
But to be honest, this time I allowed myself to have a few beers, and since I haven’t been eating because I’m somewhat depressed (I’m coming out of a serious depression that still seems to want to cling to my soul), I think the headache this time was because of that. Although, I could perfectly well think it was everything mixed together.
The thing is, I couldn’t get any relief with pills, herbal teas, head massages, menthol on my forehead — a strong menthol my aunt brings from the United States because you can’t find that kind here anymore — or cold compresses… nothing helped; the pain just overwhelmed me. That’s when I decided to go to the hospital.
My mother said, “Don’t go, there’s nothing there.” I replied, “Whenever I’m like this, a shot always helps me.” The truth is there’s nothing in the hospital — right in front of me a girl showed up with cramps in her hands, and there wasn’t even a syringe. Luckily, the doctor had one on him and was able to treat her; otherwise, no — there are no medications, there’s nothing.
My mother had one strong pill left for her pain, Tremadol. But it was the last one; I couldn’t take it from her. Thank God I didn’t listen to her. I got dressed and went to the hospital. My aunt from Santiago de Cuba, who was visiting us, came along. The emergency room was packed with people. I said to myself, holding my head with both hands, “You’ll see.” But it seemed that they had already been attended to and were just waiting for something because the consultation chairs — the ones next to the doctors’ desks — were empty.
I sat down in one. A very young doctor, maybe not even graduated yet, asked me, “What’s wrong?”
I have a very strong headache, I told her. “What are your symptoms?” Asthma, sacro-lumbar pain… everything! I replied. She said, “We have nothing to give you.”
My mother is no prophet — she’s often wrong and, in my view, a very clumsy woman — but this time she was right. Oh, she was right.
Then another very young doctor, perhaps also not yet graduated, said he had a vial of Diclofenac! Blessed Diclofenac!
They usually don’t give me that injection when I go, and I have no idea what Diclofenac even is, but for me it might as well have been lethal — I didn’t care. I thanked them a thousand times. They gave me the shot. My aunt and I left into the fresh air, feeling grateful for the experience. I was very lucky. And every Cuban living (stranded) on the Island today knows and understands what that means.
We got home. We told my mother and my other aunt everything that had happened. They were happy for us, and I slept as if I had the best health in the world.