Medicine

Sofia is sick. Well, she seems to be doing much better, but she has been sick for the last few days.

Now normally when your baby is sick, you are troubled, concerned, and otherwise agitated at the horrible injustice in the world where a baby can be sick, and even question the existence of God - how could a just God let an innocent baby get a cold????

But I put aside my faith-shattering concerns for my daughter this time around because this presented to me a new opportunity to see Argentina from a different perspective: that of a consumer in the field of health sciences.

After the symptoms developed, and our friends and family had shared their opinions with us regarding Sofia's health (my Uncle in Hawaii recently sent me a very funny email that pointed out that Argentines know everything and have an opinion about everything else, and will share these with you whether or not you ask for it), we finally woke up one morning and knew we had to call the pediatrician. Now, she had seen her own pediatrician (a cousin), but had taken a turn for the worse, so it was time to elevate the level of care.

In the US, the sequence of events probably would have been something like this (and I'm using the model from Washington wherein our pediatrician didn't take insurance, which means he could limit the number of patients he has, which means you can call and actually see him the same day - this may confuse some of you in large health plans, but there was a time when you would be sick and call your doctor and you could see him or her that day rather than waiting six weeks, when you would need to see either a host of MDs to treat the now escalated illness or a mortician): Baby coughs; mom gets concerned; mom shares concern with dad; dad registers concern by commenting on how horribly fat Ronaldo (see Brazil's world cup team) has become; baby feels warm; mom gets further concerned and contemplates medicating baby; mom shares concern with dad; dad registers concern by wondering where all the beer in the fridge went and at the same time why he has gained a couple pounds - related?; mom hands baby to dad and says "Does she feel warm to you?" and dad grabs baby in a Hermann Trophy type pose on his way to the recycling bin to see if all of the beer has really been consumed; en route, dad notices his arm is feeling really hot - what could be so hot in the middle of winter on his arm?; dad looks at arm and finds his adorable baby - isn't she so cute? but why is she so hot?; dad says to mom "Honey, does the baby have a fever? And when did she start coughing?"; mom contemplates the ability to raise baby on her own while dad's body lies rotting under the porch; mom gets tylenol (or motrin, or paracetemol for those unconcerned by the FDA's unwillingness to approve it) and administers to the child, having concluded that dad is, unfortunately, a free babysitter and allegedly will have an important role in the child's life; baby continues to seem unwell - maybe even loses that cute giggly composure and instead adopts a "Hey - what the fuck is this whole sick thing? I'm not into this - why aren't you doing something to make me feel warm and fuzzy?" look; mom asks dad with a tone of why-am-I-even-asking-you "Should we call the doctor?"; dad replies "it's just a fever, it's not like she's sick or anything"; mom calls doctor (this is a vital part of the health science service delivery); doctor's service asks at what time the baby stopped breathing - "the baby stopped breathing!?!!???" replies mom - doctor's service asks if it's a life threatening emergency - mom makes the mistake of being honest - doctor's service schedules an appoint for 6 weeks, but promises to call if something opens up sooner; baby either continues to get worse, in which case repeat the previous, or gets better thanks to tylenol (or motrin or paracetemol or something else that mom does at this point after cutting dad out of the loop).

OK, wait, that's not right. I think for us in the US it's more like you call the doctor, talk to his nurse, she consults with doctor, she says "Try giving the baby some tylenol and keep a close watch. If she doesn't improve within 72 hours or gets worse, call us back and the doctor will want to see her." Or if the fever is really bad, he sees her right away. Or if there is some other symptom, like missing a limb, or demonstrating signs of being possessed. Then, when the fever doesn't improve or one of the symptoms she said to look out for arises (and I'm not being sexist here - our doctor is male and his nurse is female - I'm not judging it, just using this gender assignment that exists in actuality for the purpose of hyperbole), the nurse says "OK, Dr [name withheld for fear of lawsuit] wants to see her - can you bring her in today at 3:30?" And at this point I usually say to my wife "Thank God our doctor doesn't take insurance and he will see her the same day that we make the initial call!" (When we get the bill I say to my wife "WHAT THE $(*&% IS THIS???" Our doctor usually justs forwards his mortgage bill to us for routine visits, and for more sofisticated visits he forwards his child's tuition bill for Harvard. We are all very proud of how well he did last semester - he's thinking about law school.)

Argentina Health Services: So, the baby has actually seen her doctor, and received the initial review of "keep an eye on it" - in a nutshell. A lot more was said, but it was in Spanish, and you probably don't speak Spanish. It's times like when we are in the doctor's office that I think I don't speak Spanish either. But I'm told that's what he said.

So we kept an eye on it. This morning she woke up (again and again and again and again and again) with worse conditions, so we called our insurance company's urgent line. See, they have stickers for us for our phones - one with an urgent phone # and one with an emergency phone #. What's the difference? Good question. Under emergency, it says something like "If you call this number it means you have no plans for being alive by the time you get your medical bill." Urgent is described as "If you are a parent, you probably think it's an Emergency, but really it's just Urgent." So we called the Urgent number.

Guess what they said.

Go ahead - guess.

"Ok, we will send the pediatrician over - he will be there within 2 hours." (Again, the doctor really was male, so I'm not limiting the expectations of my daughters, just reporting the facts for the purpose of irony.) At which point, I said to my wife "Thank God our doctor doesn't take insurance and he will see her the same day that we make the initial call! Should I get more beer? Am I as fat as Ronaldo?"

I take the older daughter to school, and when I get back the pediatrican has come and gone. This is not because I dropped her off at College and came back by way of a short visit to see Sandusky in Australia (he's a person, not a thing - well, he's a personable thing). I took less than an hour to taxi to Isa's school, walk her to her classroom where she reluctantly let go of me after the teacher promised to play princess today, waited 10 minutes for the bus, and took the bus straight back. The guy was fast. I didn't even get a chance to stock up on beer. Nor to step on the scale. Oh - and he left his bill. $0. Now that's in pesos, to be fair, so let me convert that for you to US$ (or as it's said here, U$S). That would be U$S0 (zero - free - nada - zilch). Perhaps that's because the tuition for the doctor's kid is also U$S0. (Oh and our insurance premiums? So cheap I won't even go into it here.)

So I took the prescription to the pharmacy, got all the accoutrement I needed, and in a typical fashion complained about how much it was (prescription drugs were U$S0, and all other stuff was U$S70 - for things that I'm fairly certain would cost like U$S700 in Washington). Then I picked up some factura (pastries - more on that some other day) for U$S1, and went home to administer said prescriptions with said accoutrement to said baby per the said pediatrician-who-did-a-house-call-for-free's instructions.

Now it's 4 AM, the baby is sleeping great, has no fever, drank an entire bottle at 3, and I can't sleep. What is that about???? Well, I guess back in California it's only midnight.

World Cup school

You may have heard that in other countries, everything shuts down during the world cup. Well, in Buenos Aires, that's definitely true while Argentina is playing.

For the first game, it was on a Saturday, and the pictures on the news of the streets of the city of Buenos Aires were more desolate and remote than at 6 am. (Mind you, at 6 am a lot of people are still going home from dinner normally....)

The second game was on Friday morning. The game started locally at 10 am and ended around 11:45. This sucked for me, because Isa gets out of school at 11:45. It's a 30 minute walk, and I knew there would be no cabs available, so I had to figure out how to go get Isa and see the game. Not seeing the game,was of course, not an option. I asked her teachers about it, and they said - "oh, we will be watching the game!" You see, here, in order to ensure the kids come to school, the bring TVs in so the kids can see Argentina play.

How awesome would that be??? Could you imagine every school in Boston having a TV tuned into the World Series?

Anyway, so Isa got to watch the World Cup, and I eventually figured out a way. Of course, even if I had missed it, one of the sports channels here is basically playing the Argentina - Serbia Montenegro game nonstop.

In the meantime, my laptop is having some serious hard drive issues, and I may be losing my outlook file with everyone's contact info in it. My backup of it is kept safely in Washington, so feel free to write me at jowen71@hotmail.com to give me your contact info, and as soon as I get my computer back up (or rather, get a new hard drive) I will be back on the bandwagon. In the meantime, try giving me a call!

World Cup: Argentina v USA

It has been pointed out that I haven't written anything in a while and people have asked what happened? Well, the World Cup happened. It's hard work trying to watch 6 hours of futbol every day while still being an attentive father and husband! Especially when you enter a state of chronic depression caused by the disappearance of the US left back in the 4th minute, allowing the Czechs to score the winning goal - but more on that later.

What’s been the most interesting thing about watching the World Cup from Argentina for me has so far been watching the Argentina game. Obviously the buildup here was huge – with the World Cup getting its own section in the daily paper – every day. It’s almost (and I stress almost) impressive to see that there are so many things that one could fill up 16 pages every single day. Of course, some of that is stuff like what the team did at practice yesterday and what Diego Maradona ate for breakfast.

But more to the point, after the Argentina game, everyone here was depressed. They won, 2-1. Maradona talked about the need to look at more players for the national team. The papers were dissecting “what went wrong.” And everyone I talk to said the team played horribly. Funny – the game I watched they played exactly the way they should! Two early goals by their star strikers, so take them off so they can rest for the next game in 5 days (besides, they have a bench that other countries would love to have as a first team), and then play conservatively so as not to allow the other team scoring opportunities. It’s a lot easier to make the other team chase the ball than to run end line to end line for 90 minutes. Sure, after the second goal it may not be as entertaining as the Nike commercials, but they went to Germany to win the World Cup – not run for President….

Meanwhile, back in the US of A, the press talked about how beautifully Argentina played, expending enough energy to win the game, and displaying a glimpse of its ability to dominate without peaking too early. But what do Americans know about futbol? Clearly nothing, or rather three to nothing, as the Czechs would show a couple of days later.

So after Eddie Lewis disappeared upfield, and the Czechs quickly drove the ball into space, lifted a beautiful cross onto the head of their star forward, the Americans tried hard to play their own game, and if you read the American press, you would’ve thought that Bruce Arena had fielded a team of kids selected only for the appeal of their soccer-moms. After going down 2-0, Arena took a gamble, changed the formation, and sacrificed (?) a defender for an attacker in order to win back some goals. Like betting on green in roulette, it seldom works – but when it does!!!!

So instead of a big payoff, Arena went on to describe the game as the worst game by this team ever played. The US press agreed, and lit up Arena, and pretty much every player who put on the blue jerseys that day. The ratings for US players only gave Reyna a passing grade (and he, of course, is the son of Argentines…).

Imagine – if the US press was so critical of their own team, the Argentine press that hates America clearly would highlight the ineptitude of the “soccer” players. Or not.

The Argentine press gave better marks for all but two American players than the Brazilians (who played a horrible game). They were encouraged by Arena’s willingness to take risks and at least try to play an attacking game when the Czechs were so bunkered in. But hey – what do they know? It’s not like they’ve won a couple of world cups or anything. Besides, they don’t even play real football – just that silly game with a round ball – you know, the one that a few people watch. Like those drunk English hooligans.

So rather than mourn the horrible performance, I choose to celebrate the fact that we have finally been elevated to a status where we are more critical than those countries with a rich history and passion for the beautiful game. At least, I do right now – 10 minutes after Argentina won 6-0 over the Serbs and Montenegrans…..

Ask me again on Saturday at 6 after the US-Italy game.

Pictures

...because I'm too busy watching the World Cup to write....

This was a gift (the shirt, not the baby) from a good friend of the family (not like in a mafia sense - an actual friend of our actual family). I figure the message is pretty clear....


Isa reading a book to her "cousin" Greta. Ummm, actually she isn't reading it, but she has it memorized so it's as if she reads it. I'm hoping she always can remember everything in her books so that she gets straight A's and gets a full-ride to William & Mary. Just like her Dad. Sort of. Only without the whole "remembering everything in all of his books and getting straight A's and a full-ride." And Ana probably wouldn't mind if she didn't go to William & Mary. But other than that, it's EXACTLY THE SAME!


Isa adores Sof. Sof adores Isa. I adore both of them. Ana adores the three of us. The three of us adore Ana. It's really a state of adoration. Don't you adore it?

By the way, what's up with Dad taking pictures of his kids wearing shirts saying how great Dad is?


Isa playing dress up with her cousin Lucci. Apparently in Ana's family the kids are adorable - I guess it's a genetic thing. Not sure why she married into my cesspool of genes....


Isa enjoying yet another meal of fresh pasta. In case you didn't know it, in addition to all the dulce de lecce, sweets, meat and wine, Argentina is also the land of excellent fresh pasta. Please note the t-shirt (thanks to her great Uncle Pete) - while in California this shirt may not be accurate, I'm comfortable that it's true with any kid she runs into in Argentina!


Sofia practicing rolling over. This photo was taken before she had become adept at it. By the way, this is her plan pen in which she spends all her time trying to crawl and get away from me while I blog away... Oh shit - where'd she go????

Sofia just chillin' like a villain, listening to Bob Dylan. She's good at this. This photo was taken when we got settled in - so she's grown a little since then (it's been a month). Now she has a ponytail, and prefers to rock out to Santana or tango to Carlos Gardel.



Isa eating Argentine cookies. Apparently her abuela built up this idea in Isa's head that Argentina was the land of treats. Well, she wasn't exactly wrong....

Sunset view from our apartment. Isa wants to paint a picture of it because she is very inspired by Georgia O'Keefe (thanks to her teachers at Franklin Montessori in DC). This is the only actual picture of Buenos Aires - that we have taken so far....

School

Today is Isa’s first day of school.

This, by no means, was a small fete.

She is going to Bayard – a prep school nearby that our cousin went to, and is very nice and seemingly in the league of better schools for Bs As. But then, what do I know? I guess they could be teaching her the Napoleonic Code and advocating fascist doctrine surreptitiously, but I don’t think so….

Most importantly, though, she is very proud of herself, and yesterday was so excited about the school uniform that after she tried it on at the store, she didn’t want to take it off. (Yes, she wears a school uniform. More on that later.)

So the search for a school in many respects became like the search for the Holy Grail. And in saying that, I admit I have seen the Da Vinci Code (movie, not the book - well, I've seen the book, but I've never picked it up) which I never intended on doing, but before I digress significantly onto a wholly different topic, I think I will just say that like the Holy Grail, the best school for Isa kept changing. Was it a kindergarten? Was it Ana’s school in Olivos? Was it her cousin’s school? Was it finding the direct descendant of Jesus Christ and hiring him (or her) as her tutor? Seemingly only Dan Brown would know….

Ana went to her cousin’s school so I’m not going to write about that. Originally we were going to look at two. The second was Ana’s alma mater (can elementary schools be alma maters?) I’m not going to dwell on why we decided not to go to Ana’s alma mater, but allow me to paint a picture.

Imagine a classroom the size of a large walk-in closet. A very large closet mind you, but still a closet. OK, that’s not fair – imagine a classroom the size of a ridiculously small room. So small you would have to move the tables every time you wanted to take out certain classroom toys. Now imagine classroom materials being toys so big you have to move the kids' tables to take them out. Now imagine far too many children for this small space so that you have to move the kids and their tables whenever you want to take out certain classroom toys. And by the way, toys? In class? So big you have to move the tables and the children to take them out?

Now imagine it’s snack time, and all the kids are eating bread and butter with juice or tea. TEA??? Yes, tea. Because I’m sure your 4 year old needs a little caffeine to get through class. After all, you have to keep moving his table around so you can take out the big toys for him (or her) to play with. (4 year-olds here do drink tea, coke, and even some coffee - though I have not seen that yet.)

Now while you are imagining the kids eating the bread and butter with tea, imagine one boy has found a toy small enough that he doesn’t have to move any tables or kids around to play with. No – he found this toy in his pants. And decided to take his pants and underwear off and stand at the table where other kids were eating their bread and butter and tea to play with his toy pretty much on the table. (For those of you who have not understood my subtlety, allow me some literary symbolism. “The boy felt free and liberated in the classroom in discovering his gender. He stroked the discovery while contemplating his deeper role in the universe.” Yeah – he had his wallabegong out on the table, and was using it for a toy.

Some people might think, oh well, not necessarily my kid, but I know of or have heard of kids taking their clothes off in public – it’s not so big a deal." And I agree, I don’t blame the kid – he’s just discovering intellectual curiosity for biology and gender roles in society. However, in this classroom that resembles a large walk-in closet, where the kids and the tables have to move so they can play with certain toys, there are 20 kids and 1 teacher and 1 assistant. This is not a city pre-occupied with ratios and statistics, but in DC when you pick a place for your pre-schooler you consider what the teacher to student ratio is to ensure your child gets enough personal attention to guarantee admission to Sidwell so that your child will go on to an Ivy League university, thus sucking all the money out of your various bank accounts and then do something foolish like take a year off and live in a foreign country to enjoy life rather then get caught up in the rat race. And you will be very upset that you paid all this money for your kid to goof off in a far away place while you are trying to rebuild your retirement plan. I mean, the gall of someone to just move to another country for a whole year without a job or a …. Ummmm – never mind.

So anyway, the teacher and her assistant had no idea that this kid had his wallabegong on the table and was using it for play dough for approximately 5 minutes. Now I know in Buenos Aires the locals tend to exaggerate. Things are never as close or as far as one says. More on that later. But in this case, it was 5 minutes. I know because for 5 minutes I was uncomfortably standing with my baby in my arms trying to ensure that my daughter was sufficiently distracted at her table by her bread, butter, and JUICE (hell no – she can’t have tea!) that she wasn’t curious about the other’s exploration into new territory.

So the teacher sends the little boy on an expedition to the bathroom with the assistant. Not 2 minutes later she offers me his chair as if it is not being used and there is no one returning to sit in that chair. Mind you, he was just sitting there naked. Yeah – I’m fine standing in the corner, but please tell me if you need me to move to take out the toys behind me.

The next school, Ana saw and really liked it. The last school was Bayard, and Ana went alone again (we learned that taking Isa to see the school is bad, because what if she likes it and we don’t? And how is she not going to like being with kids her age when she doesn’t have any friends her age yet? Oops.) Ana really liked this one, too. I really liked the stuff they sent home (hey – the other schools didn’t give us stuff!) so we went yesterday and talked to the teacher while Isa went to class. (And this class they teach things – and not how to play Shoots and Ladders.) I loved it, Ana loved it, and Isa really loved it.

Interesting aside. After we went to a café before going to get the uniform. While I was waiting for Ana and Isa, I was looking out the window watching people walk by. A 10-year old (or 9, or 11, or a 22 year old with stunted growth from all the people smoking around him) was walking down the sidewalk with a soccer ball and no school uniform. Since all the kids wear school uniforms (even public schools), I was curious what he was doing at noon out of uniform. He was dressed pretty scruffy, and while he waits for the light to change, puts the ball down and starts juggling. Then he flips the ball in the air behind him, over his head, and catches it on his foot smoothly. The 10 year old kid pulled a bicycle on the street corner waiting for the light to change. And that, my friends, is why Argentina will win the World Cup on July 9.

Now, as I mentioned all children wear school uniforms, so we went off to the store where the uniforms are sold. When Isa is in first grade she will wear the traditional plaid skirt, shirt, etc. that everyone instantly recognizes as a school-girl uniform. For now, she wears sweats with a shirt and the school logo. There’s also a smock, but the sweats are easier because she has no choice what to wear underneath, and I’m sure you can imagine how seriously Isa takes the morning ritual of deciding what to wear. (“But this shirt isn’t the right shade of pink – I want a dark pink shirt and light pink pants today.”)

Pop culture will occasionally depict women in school girl uniforms (key word here being women – as if the woman in question is 26 but still in the 10^th grade) in a provocative manner. I do not have my head buried in the sand, and I know that there are men (and possibly women) who find the whole Brittany Spears in a school girl uniform sexy. Personally, I always thought it was a little peculiar that someone would find a child’s outfit sexy. It would, however, appear to be a component of our conventional wisdom that if Brittany Spears wore a school girl uniform, Lindsay Lohan a nurse’s uniform, and Jessica Simpson wore a maid’s uniform, you would have three women demonstrating the success of the women’s lib movement as American men apparently find it attractive that women are contributing to the economic success of the US of A by studying hard, taking care of our health needs, and, um, being employed in people’s homes. However, when you go and buy your 4 year old daughter her school uniform, and you see on the rack the uniforms she could be wearing for the next 14 years, I believe it may impact one’s perspective on if the school girl uniform is sexy. I’m told that when my daughter is 18, I will have a similar outlook on magazines like Maxim. I’ll probably have the same thought when she works as a maid to pay for nursing school.

And no. I won't be posting any pictures of Isa in her new uniform.