Looking for a Miracle

Well, not really, though a miracle would be nice....

Today I had an appointment for acupuncture with a guy named Angel Lermer. I found him on Indextar, a site where expats review and recommend different services in Buenos Aires. From the reviews, it seemed that he made house calls, but when I called him, he told me to come to his office.

For some reason we had major communication issues. I understood our appointment to be today, Friday (Viernes) at 9. On Wednesday, during my Italian class, my phone rang twice. I just turned it off when it rang, but when I checked the message later, one was from Dr. Lermer. I thought he was calling to confirm our appointment on Friday and didn't bother to call him back. Later that day my phone rang and I answered it and it was him. He said we'd had an appointment for that morning at 9. I told him it was Friday. I thought he was confused.

Today I woke up and looked at my clock and thought it was 6:25. The birds were going crazy chirping away outside and the bird that sounds like an ice cream truck was chirping the loudest of all. I thought it was way too early to get up so I rolled over for another snooze. But my body was achy from lying in bed so long and I decided instead to get up and take a meclizine so that when I finally did roll out of bed I wouldn't have to worry about having a vertigo attack. When I went into the kitchen, through the blurry haze of my morning vision, I looked at the clock and it said 8:35. I guess I misread the clock next to my bed! My appointment was at 9:00.

I quickly brushed my teeth and washed my face and got dressed. I didn't have time to shower, so I splashed on some cologne and ran out. I caught a taxi and arrived a little before 9.

I had written down Uriburu 185, as the address. As I looked for 185, I saw 187 and 183, but no 185. It didn't look like any building on the odd numbered side of the street could be the right one. But looking across the street at 184, it called out to me. It was a big stone building that had a buzzer outside that looked like the kind of building an acupuncturist would be in. Fortunately, I had my cell and I called and sure enough, I had written down the wrong address.

Dr. Lermer's office looked like a doctor's office, even more so than my chiropractor's office, which looks like a chiropractor's office in an apartment. There was a little waiting room with magazines and lots of certificates on the wall. Dr. Lermer was wearing a white lab coat and was a very handsome elderly gentleman with white hair and sparkling blue eyes. He went into the consultation room and I sat in the waiting room looking at his certificates, most of which were for sport medicine. It seemed that he was a kineseoligo, which I think is a chiropractor. I was worried that when I went into the consultation room I would find one of those upright massage tables that my chirporactor uses.

Fortunately, that was not the case. There were some chairs, and two beds. I sat down in the chair and he asked me some questions. You'd think that as many times as I've told people what is going on with me, that it would be easy, but I still lack a lot of vocabulary to be able to describe my symptoms, how long this has been happening, how often it happens, etc. Fortunately Dr. Lermer got the gist and had me lie down on one of the beds, and to my delight, he put some needles in different points on my ankle, leg and hand. He was indeed an acupuncturist.

Then he wheeled this strange looking machine up next to me and asked me if they had ever done something to me. I knew that I had never had this done, even though I didn't know what it was, so I replied no. He put this metal thing next to my ear and turned on the machine. I have no idea what it was, but I liked it.

Every now and then he'd come back and adjust the needles and reposition the thing next to my ear to make sure it was flush up against it.

After taking the needles out, he said he was going to put seeds in my ear. Wow! I was geting a full treatment. All I needed next was a massage! After putting the seeds on many of the same points that Gonzalo used, he told me I should massage the seeds 3-4 times a day, which was different from Gonzalo, who always told me not to touch them.

When we were finished, I asked him if it was 100 pesos, since that was what I had written down, and he told me 50. I don't know what happened that I got the address wrong 185 instead of 184, and the price wrong 100 vs. 50 pesos, and who knows, I may have also misunderstood the day. What is happening to my Spanish!?!

I asked him if he wanted me to come back and he said yes, that unfortunately this was not magic, and we'd have to continue treatemtns for about a month.

And so, while there may not be a miracle cure, it seems that I am going to be spending a lot of time in the next two months visiting a variety of pracitioners to get this monster inside my head under control.

In other news, Cristina Kirchner de Fernandez, presidenta de Argentina, made a decision to nationalize private pension plans. I don't know what it is about, but the expat blogs are buzzing about it and I saw on CNN that her decision caused a tumble in the Spanish stock market and banking sector.

It's another beautiful spring day with low humidity. Seems to me that October is a fine time to visit Argentina!