American Medical Tourism Blogger has Major Emergency Surgery in Colombia

I never thought it would happen to me.  As I write, research, and promote medical tourism in Colombia, who could guess  that I would soon have a 'as-serious-as-it-gets' experience as an emergency patient. I speak barely enough Spanish to say I am in pain, and not enough to know what the doctors were saying was wrong with me.  But the nine days I spent in the hospital I will write about for the world to read.  And hopefully my experience will help others needing medical treatment and cannot receive it, for more reasons than just financially.  I am only 2 1/2 weeks out of surgery and recovery is going very well.  My surgeon is a wonderful man who speaks better English than my Spanish abilities, and will make his second house visit Friday.  The tomography picture above shows my kidney on the left normally.  The right kidney (looking like a hot dog) is smashed by the 10 cm abscess behind it.  My large intestine was also half blocked which caused me to become severely dehydrated.  I had started with a bladder infection and as we are reminded to 'always finish ALL the antibiotic prescription' I consciously did not.  I now know why this is impertinent; I learned the hard way.