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Age: 45 años.
Home address: Siquisiqui, Urdaneta, Estado Lara.
What can I tell you, Doctor? I am a diabetic since the age of thirty, and sometimes jokingly I say: "This is a gift from my father". He also suffers from this disease, and still lives, like my mother. I have five children, and I work in trade, mostly selling plastic containers. In the family, my sister was the most studious. She became a nurse, and is working at the hospital Siquisiqui.
I will not deny that I like drinking, but right now, pure juice is all I drink. My misfortune came in May, last year, exactly on the day of the mothers. We were making a dinner at home, but I had to leave for a duty, and the damn car started with a failure, due to my carelessness. I press my left foot against the hot metal of the engine, and hit a cry of pain. My skin left attached to the iron. The burn was deep, and my sister ran with me to the hospital, where I received first aid, and they decided to admit me. Cures were painful: some days better, and some worse. I lasted three months, until I got discharged and remained curing me at the hospital. A few weeks later, I had a vesicle pain and still open burn again they decided to admit me to relieve vesicle colic. Just three days were enough to get two bacteria. I cannot remember one of the names, but the other yes it was one Pseudomonas, then came two months of martyrdom. That infection would not go away with anything. I received treatment with every kind of antibiotics. A morning, during the medical visit, Dr. Méndez, Venezuelan orthopaedic, and head of surgical operating, told me that the only option to my problem was to perform an amputation up to the knee. Look, in this moment I felt as if join me heaven and earth as a whole. A strong man like me, what could I do with only one leg in front of my family? Isn't it? But, I cried all that night, and I could not sleep while I remembered the word: amputation. The decision was made. They would operate me very early on Friday. Let me clarify that Siquisiqui is about three hours from Barquisimeto. This is a mountainous area of difficult access. There, the rainy season is hard. Did you hear me? Thursday before my operation, it was raining cat and dogs. It was raining all night and morning. Look if so, that the bridge into town, that was built 27 years ago, fell completely.
That was why Doctors doctors could not arrive to the hospital, and suspended amputation. My sister, when saw the situation went to Cuban doctors she knew, and brought to Dr. Teo. He told me that if I moved to the Centre for Integrated Attention (CDI), I could save the leg. I did not think it twice. I went definitively, and what kind of serious Doctor was he! He grabbed my leg and cared as him own leg. It improved considerably, but was still at risk.
When my leg was better, he made coordination, and referred me to the clinic of the Obelisco. There, I was received by the Cuban angiologist Cecilio González. When he saw my medical condition, he gave me hopes to save my leg. I did not believe his words, but he had no choice. He started injecting me a Cuban medicine in the wound which I wrote the name on a paper, and I learned its name by repeating it too much: Heberprot-P. I asked what it meant, and the doctor told me about it. However, I changed it, and I call it: He-ben-prot-P (Hecho y Bendecido para Proteger a los Pobres) that means to me: Done and blessed to protect poor people.
I will just tell you that I received twenty injections, and here I am fine, with my two legs. I say, thanks to the discovery of this medicine, to the friendship arose between our two countries, and to the collapse of the Siquisiqui's bridge. These are things that happened, and thanks to them, I'm still a happy man.
