Email To My Brother: Third World Medicine

Never gave it much thought, so I didn’t know about what could happen to a person if they came up short on their hospital bill payment in a third world country, but I do know about the possible risk of medical fraud in a foreign country
 
     (i.e. Steve McQueen’s coffee enemas)
 
and financial fraud
 
     (“You owe us $30,000.”
     “THIRTY THOUSAND? You said TWENTY-FIVE!”
     “Yes, but remember that glass of water you asked for...?”),
 
and what can we do? We’re strangers in a strange land, and don’t have Kim Kardashian to intervene for us with President Trump. I also didn’t consider that contributing to her Panama Vacation Fund might unknowingly be contributing to their death.
     It makes my being cheap noble.
      I’ve only heard of chemotherapy being used against cancer. I’ve never heard that it’s used to fight other diseases. Then again, maybe I’m lucky I’ve never had to learn that. Still, the impression I got was that she is covered for chemo, but not for the out-of-country stem cell treatment.
     Why not try the treatment you’re covered for first, and then, if it doesn’t work, you can try the non-approved treatment?
     I don't know.
      I remember, back when you were at the tail end of grade school, you came home from swimming with your friends one summer, and had water in your ear. No matter what mom and dad tried, they couldn’t get the water out of your ear. Dad even gave you an enema, because that was always his go-to plan for his kids' medical problems, but it didn’t work. It just sent you down a path that we could never talk about.
      Finally, mom and dad agreed they had to take you to a doctor, BUT they didn’t have the money to take you to an AMERICAN doctor, so they took you to Juan’s Emergency Medical Clinic & Tire Repair across the border in Mexico. The doctor/mechanic said he’d have to stick the air hose they used to inflate tires with into your opposite ear and blow out the water that way.
      So he had dad pinch your nose shut with one hand and cover your mouth with the other, while the “doctor” held your head still with one hand and inserted the business end of the air hose into your non-waterlogged ear with the other. When he pressed the lever to release the high-pressure air, your head inflated to TWICE its normal size!
      “Don’t worry,” he told mom and dad, “as the air leaks out, your son’s head will return to its normal size.”
     Sadly, mom never lived to see that happen.
     And dad is STILL waiting.
 
 

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