Well, a bit has happened since I last made notes here. We moved from Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta to the new marina at LaCruz to Mazatlan. During most of that time I was having a pain in my upper back that got increasingly worse. In fact, by the time we left LaCruz for San Blas, then Mazatlan I was pretty much useless as a co-captain. The last leg from SB to Mazatlan was 28 hours nonstop and Marcy stayed up virtually the whole time and, along with the autopilot got us here safely.
I visited a doctor in Nuevo Vallarta who was recommended by some of the local boaters. He immediately diagnosed a broken rib at the juncture of the backbone. He prescribed an antiinflammatory and a muscle relaxant and said I should be pretty well healed in month to six weeks. It didn't do any good at all, except the relaxant worked as a "happy" pill.
So when I got to Mazatlan, I went in to see another doctor. He sent me for xrays and tests and it turned out that I had a growth in the area where the first doc had determined there was a break. Mazatlan doctor Guzman sent me to a surgeon who has a lot of names. The one I remember is Sergio. Sergio set me up for surgery to remove the mass after some additional blood tests. The surgery was performed on Wednesday, March 26 at a small hospital. Very clean, very modern. And the good doctor Sergio spent about 2 hours cutting out a larger than expected piece of tissue that was wrapped up in muscle and cartilege. And off that little offender went to the pathology lab. Result: benign. And I'm recovering nicely, thank you. We even went out to dinner last night after a follow up visit with the surgeon. The grand total of the expenses for doctors, surgical team, hospital, lab fees, path lab and medications came to a little less than $1200.
And I am thankful for having access to such good care in such little time. It only took one day to get into the doctor. Two days to see the surgeon and one day to schedule the surgery. There are lots of differences between here and the states in health care. The US medical providers could learn a lot from the Mexicans.