Going to the Doctor in Brazil

As most of you know, Greg has had two episodes of pulmonary emboli. Because of this, he is on Coumadin (an anticoagulant) for the rest of his life. Because Coumadin is a poison (rat poison to be exact), precautions must be taken so that the levels are not too high (thus making your blood not clot enough, that’s how the rats die) or too low (then it clots too much). He has to take a test called an INR, once a month to insure that his levels are correct. All this is orchestrated by a physician. So, one of the things we had to do on our arrival to Brazil was find a physician relatively quickly.
We talked with Steve and Debra Rowe (our missionary friends) about finding a pulmonologist who could speak English. They had seen a pulmonologist, but she could only understand English, not speak it. Since we don’t even understand Portuguese (yet), she really didn’t fit the bill. Then one day, their daughter Krista told us that a friend of hers at work (she teaches at the American School) is married to a cardiologist who speaks English. She gave us his HOME PHONE NUMBER, and told us too call him at 7PM. Maybe he could refer us to an English speaking pulmonologist. She said his name was Fabio. I asked her if he had long flowing golden hair but as she had never heard of the American model for love novels, she didn’t get the joke. (Is that a problem?)
We called Fabio at 7, but he was not home yet. Fifteen minutes later, HE CALLED US! When I explained the situation, he said “Well, I’m actually a vascular surgeon so I can take care of this. If I think you need to be referred to a pulmonologist later, I will do it.” Then, HE SET UP AN APPOINTMENT for us the following Wednesday. He said to come about 15 minutes early as he only has office house for half a day, one day a week. The rest of the time, he teaches at Unicamp, the local university (University of Campinas), and his schedule for the day was already full. Before the end of the conversation, I said, “In the U.S., it’s not proper to call a physician by his first name unless you are his friend. What is your last name?” He replied, “Here, it is common to call a people by their first names, just call me Fabio.” Then HE GAVE US HIS CELL PHONE NUMBER, in case we needed to ask him anything, or change the appointment!!! (I feel like I woke up on another planet!)
We arrived on time to our appointment. There was a receptionist but no back office nurse. Doutor Fabio, called us into the room, side kissed me, and spent about 45 minutes talking with Greg. He also looked at my medications so that I could get them in the Brazilian version. We’ve never known what exactly caused Greg’s blood to clot. Doutor Fabio said he was going to refer us to a hematologist, who would take Greg off the Coumadin for 10 days, give him Heparin (an injectable anticoagulant) for those 10 days and then take a test to see what is wrong with his blood. He said that Unicamp is known for their care of these types of problems and that if Greg’s problem was genetic, we could have our children tested for the same thing. So he will be seeing a hematologist in October.
He sent us to a place which draws your blood for Greg’s INR. Then you can look your results up on the internet, THE NEXT DAY! He also checked his liver function tests so that he would have baseline values to note changes. We were very pleased with our Brazilian medical care!