21. Agony, death and resurrection.

That night, while the chill announced a relentless fever, between reality and delirium, in the front bed a feverish patient like her got up to go to the bathroom, but lost her balance and hit her head on the edge of her bed. The doctors and nurses turned on the lights, it was early morning.

They were upset, they made resurrection maneuvers in a hurry

"She died," said the doctor on duty, his face contorted. The nurses lost their haste, they froze in front of the corpse.

Maxima, who had a fever of 41 degrees, could not tell if what was happening was real or not.

When the sun and breakfast came, the patient who hit his head was no longer on the front bed.

"Wait a minute, don't eat anything yet, doctor, we're going to take a blood sample," said the doctor who was treating her and came to visit.

"Yesterday I saw the patient in the front die," said Máxima. If you don't give me antimalarials now, I can die too, I feel very weak.

-You do not have malaria, we are going to do an HIV test.

-If you test me for HIV, you can be positive, because there is often a cross-reaction.

-It's possible.

-If you don't give me the malaria medication today, I'm going to escape.

-Relax. We will wait for the results.

Upon leaving, the doctor left instructions for the nurse to hide Máxima's clothes.

Máxima put on her sandals to go to the bathroom. After urinating, she came out of the bathroom, saw if the nurse was in the hospital corridor. and she went down the steps to the entrance. The guard who tried to control the admission of relatives to the hospital, let her pass. Trying not to stumble, she went to Av. Colombia, wearing hospital pajamas, without underwear, she walked, because she had no money, there were 20 blocks and a scorching sun until she reached her apartment.

Her parents arrived at the hospital, they let them pass, but when they reached her daughter's bed, she was not there, they asked the nurses, no reason was given. Soon there was an uproar.

-The nurse called the doctor who was treating her- her patient is not

-How did she get away?

-Yes she, apparently she did.

- Call security at the entrance.

The nurse communicated safely and was told that they saw a patient come out of her in her pajamas.

-Her daughter has escaped from the hospital.

"She can't be." She answered.

From her house, Máxima called the pharmacy and got a malaria medicine delivered to her by home delivery.

She paid for it, and immediately took it. The reaction was swift.

When her parents arrived, they saw her resting on her bed, in the company of her daughter.

-Why did you run away from the hospital? You are crazy

- If I don't they will kill me, for 5 days I have had 3 daily attacks of malaria, I experienced my agony in each one. When I saw the patient die in front of my bed, I did not hesitate, or he would leave or die.

-How do you feel now?.

- I don't have a fever, and I hope he doesn't come back.

After three days, Máxima returned to the hospital and found the doctor.

-Where did you study as a doctor? her, she asked him.

- Study infectology in London.

- Well, here I am, safe and sound, thanks to the fact that I escaped. It was so easy to make a therapeutic diagnosis, if I was not cured within 48 hours after taking the antimalarials, it was not falciparous malaria, which is the one that gives several attacks a day because vivax gives after a day.

But as he toured the steps of that hospital, the most important in the country, he remembered how his father's life was saved twice, the first time by a stab in the arm, in which the doctor did not stop the bleeding from the artery. of the arm, he collapsed it with deep sutures, and the second, when his father in an accident in the Morona River, on the border between Ecuador and Peru, where the war took place, the accident fractured a rib and it perforated the base.

He still remembers fainting when he saw his father's anemia and pained face, that he suffered massive internal bleeding, that he needed 4 pints of blood and 4 pints of plasama, which they obtained thanks to his sister donated every year to the Red Cross. Since she did the pre-military service and then she was an instructor in the army.

That night her mother was waiting with her younger sister in the hospital corridor, so with her heart in her hand, she signed the document that exempted the doctors from any responsibility, since she only had 50 percent of possibilities of living.

This operation was the task of an American doctor, who was a professor of a group of students at the University of Washington, who were doing internships at the Eugenio Espejo, including the son of Collin Power, the United States Minister of Defense, from a friend of his father, who was an emergency surgeon, considered one of the best in South America and a Colombian anesthetist who was doing his master's degree.