Swedish tourists need help too.

"Coming home to Ollanta the next day was a relief. Exhausted, dirty, with sore muscles and burnt by both the sun and wind I was ready to lunch and then nap for a few hours. While drifting off to sleep, Abrahm, mi hermanito Peruano, hollered, "Demetrio! Te buscan!" What? Gah. I wrap a towel around my waist and step outside to find two volunteers, Chet and Oren,sitting on the stone wall outside my house. "Hey! Demetrius, someone is dying and theywanted us to come get you." Shit. Um….Ok. I splash water in my face, put on pants, grab myhoodie and head out. Whats going on?, I ask. "I don't know, Annie found some women in her hotel who is really sick." Awesome. Time? 3pm.

Walking to the market I have this realization: Choosing to work in healthcare means giving up a level of privacy in exchange for a skill set and commitment to society, broadly, and your community, specifically.

Amidst dust clouds from tour buses Oren and Chet give me the run down about what is going on. This woman is having heart palpitations, trouble breathing and tingling in her hands and feet. She is waiting outside the market with Annie and Chantelle. In my head, I was expecting a Peruvian woman. Why? No idea, but I was totally surprised to find that the person was Lika, a tall, blond, Swedish rock journalist on holiday.

We are now making a scene outside the market as Lika can barely stand, Chantelle runs and grabs a blood pressure cuff and we commandeer a market stall for some quiet space. I check her vitals. My guess is altitude sickness but I'm not a fucking doctor. A call with Rocio, the doctora I work with here, confirms my guess and we make a plan.

Lika needs oxygen, steroids and to get to a lower altitude. Ollantaytambo doesn't have the facilities that she needs, nor does Urubamba, so we need to get her to Cuzco. Ok, go to Cuzco, find a doctor and you'll be fine Ms. Tourist. Glitch: Lika doesn't speak any Spanish. French, English, Swedish? Yup! But Spanish? Nah. Awesome. A moment of silence passes around the volunteer circle as we all weigh the option of going to Cuzco tonight. I look at Annie, who started this mess, and she looks at me demurely as if to say, no way boy, all you. No one looks excited to take her to Cuzco. So I say, hey, what the hell a trip to Cuzco should be fun. We haggle with a taxista and then get aboard.

Ollanta is the last main train station before Machu Picchu. This blog is mostly written at that train station because the best coffee in town is at El Albergue. Daily about 10 trains passthrough town. When the trains arrive and the tourists disembark a massive traffic jam occurs .Ollanta is small and can hardly cope with the tourism boom and the strains it puts on the infrastructure. Local and national corruption guarantees a slow pace for improvement projects. For example, the main plaza is currently under construction, has been for months and while being worked on one of the roads in and out of town is shut down. The small, Incan sized roads complicate things and with every train arrival the town is plugged up for hours. A train had arrived half an hour before Lika and I tried to leave for Cusco. We waited in the taxi for an hour. Just as we got moving another volunteer, Anne Marie, knocked on our window looking for a ride to Cuzco. Anne did a quantitative analysis of the economic impact that Awamaki has on the weavers of Patacancha. It was great to have another person aboard and to discuss Anne's research.

We make it to Cuzco around 8pm, drop off Anne and book it to the hospital. We queued up forthe doctor. Lika had gone over her symptoms and story with me in the car but we recounted the tale to the doctor here. Checked her vitals again, listened to her heart and were able to check her oxygen absorption rate. Which was unsurprisingly low. The hospital doctor was in agreement with the diagnosis of altitude sickness. So, a shot of steroids was ordered up along with a few minutes on oxygen.

Intra-muscular shots in Peru are most often administered in the butt, specifically the upper right quadrant. Back home it is usually in the arm. Lika braced herself and the nurse administered the shot. Lika gave me a look that I know all too well. The "I am going to faint right now look," wide eyed, pallid and facial features laced with fear. Trying to keep her with me by talking didn't work, she blacked out, I shouted her name to wake her up and she came to. The next look she gave me was one of abject horror and then she clung to me like a limpet. We put her oxygen and I sat with her for about an hour as she recovered.

Scary right? It was scary for me too. I figured that she would be alright, but I didn't know and had to fake it the entire time. That was draining. I wonder if that fear would ever go away? Even with years of training will that nagging doubt of my own abilities linger with me?

Once Lika was recovered, we went to a swank hotel she knew of and crashed out by 11pm. Waking up in a fancy hotel with a hot shower and soft bed was nice treat. The breakfast buffethad real butter! Oh man. That was phenomenal. Lika needed some assistance changing her flight to Lima and then we got her situated for the rest of the day. I geeked a book from the hotel for the volunteer library at Awamaki and after a good hug goodbye, hopped a combi backhome to Ollanta.