Day 6 - São Paulo

On Monday my dad and I flew to São Paulo. We arrived there around 11am and headed to my dad's friend's house. It's hard to explain how big that city is; no cab ride takes less than 30 minutes and costs lasts than 50 bucks.

The good thing about São Paulo is that it has top-notch services. I went to one of the best hospitals in South America (Albert Einstein Hostpital) to see a doctor about my condition. My dad's friend (whose house we stayed at) is one of the hospital's director, so he managed to arrange for us to see one of Brazil's top hematologists. We wanted to touch base with him to make sure that the treatment was pointing to the right direction. He is not only a great doctor, but a great person. He was very kind, comforting, and honest in the conversation we had. He essentially confirmed everything my doctor from Manaus had done and added a couple of things.

First thing he recommended was to perform an exam called Pet-CT. This exam will be used to monitor the disease. It's really funky. First, they inject some radioactive material in me, which highlights the areas of my body with high concentration of glucose. Since tumors consume lots of glucose, high concentrations indicate the presence of tumors. Then, they do a full-body computer tomography to map all the possible tumors. Pretty cool, I think.

The second thing the doctor recommended was for me to freeze my sperm, just in case the chemotherapy affects my reproductive system (not an expected side-effect, but a possible one). That way I can have babies in the future, in case my sperm count goes down dramatically. The doctor also ordered an independent analysis of my lymphonode biopsy and bone marrow biopsy, just to confirm the Hodgkin's disease diagnostic, which turned out to be accurate.

It was great to see how good the health infrastructure is here. More importantly, though, it was truly reassuring to see that, despite the simplicity of the hospitals in Manaus, the doctors that are doing the right thing.