Tuesday, February 3, 2009

One step at a time with Luiz

We just had a health blip. Luiz has been fighting a cold for a couple weeks. Living with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia means you have a lessoned ability to fight these things. He had been taking an over-the-counter med, but it was not making an impact.

So I emailed his doc at INCA with the details. She suggested we come in for an exam.

To our surprise his unscheduled visit was remarkably short and (not to our surprise) he got terrific care. They saw him, referred him for blood work and an x-ray of his lungs. Then within the hour we met with a doc to discuss the results and next steps. In all: an unscheduled exam, two tests, another exam to discuss findings, then picking up meds -- "in and out" in less than 3.5 hours (and everything free, including the meds.) That's break neck speed for a public hospital in Brazil!

Luiz is fighting a common flu but as a person with a compromised immune system he needs a bit of a boost. So the docs prescribed an antibiotic for the growing bacterial infection.

While going to a public cancer facility can be trying – seeing the dramatic situations people are living with – we have repeatedly seen the advantage that the team approach at INCA brings to Luiz’s care.

We’re back home and Luiz is doing fine.

1 comment:

ppereira said...

Take good care of yourself bonitinho!