Vet Visits in Mexico

Just before bedtime on a Friday night, Sitah started displaying strange behaviors, visiting the litter box every few minutes and constantly licking her rear end. We knew right away from past experience that something was wrong. I didn't want to wait until morning to seek treatment because I knew her condition would only worsen in that time. Having only lived in Mexico for one week, we needed to find an emergency vet ASAP. Thank goodness for Whatsapp and Google Translate, which have been crucial tools for us this week! I was able to text a vet clinic on Whatsapp and use Google translate to communicate with them in Spanish.

The first vet we contacted referred us to a second vet who was open 24/7. The only problem was that this clinic is a 20-30 minute drive from our house and we don't have a car. It was about 11:00pm at night and we were able to order a taxi using the Didi app (like Uber but you pay in cash). When we arrived at the clinic, we were pleasantly surprised that the vet on duty that night spoke almost fluent English. We were fully prepared to communicate via Google Translate, but it was not necessary this time (Please note, we are actively learning Spanish but are certainly not fluent enough to discuss medical matters yet). The vet examined Sitah and gave us some pain and anti-inflammatory medications to administer, and asked us to return on Saturday, because she would need to be sedated for proper treatment.

It was about 1:30am by the time we left. Unfortunately we discovered that Didi taxi does not operate in that neighborhood because it's a bit far from the city center, so the vet kindly called a local taxi company, who sent a driver promptly. After a night of little and fitful sleep worrying about Sitah, we returned to the same clinic the next afternoon. The vet from the night before was not on duty and had told us that none of her colleagues spoke English. So we spent a lot of time typing or speaking back and forth using the Google Translation app. It is actually quite handy that you can use the conversation feature to basically talk in real-time, although they sometimes preferred to type their responses anyway. I felt really bad for causing them extra work to explain her situation to us, which is definitely fueling our motivation to expedite our language acquisition.

We didn't know how long the procedures would take but were prepared to wait for at least a few hours. A few hours became 7 hours, mainly because they had to wait for the sedation to subside. Since we had traveled a long way in bad weekend traffic, we did not want to make another roundtrip with the taxi. So we set out to explore the neighborhood on foot. Luckily the day was overcast so it was comfortable to walk around outside at length. After 5 hours visiting the local supermarket, discovering a cute cafe for lunch, perusing a mini carnival across the street from the clinic, and having dinner at another lovely spot with live music, and 2 hours of waiting in the clinic, Sitah was finally conscious enough to return home. She was still a bit wobbly but we were all relieved to get back home together.

The vet prescribed 4 medications that Sitah should take every 8-24 hours, which seems like a lot. I hate subjecting her to so many meds, but we know it's for the best and hope she heals quickly.

Today is Tuesday and I managed to schedule an appointment with a new vet located just 2 blocks from our house, who has agreed to continue with her care plan. Our generous landlords who live on the same street as us have also offered to come along to the appointment. Sitah will have an abdominal ultrasound to look for any irregularities and a check up on her progress.