My hospital stay

I went back to school on Monday. It was a slow day where I tried to take it easy. But, how easy can you take it when teaching first graders? We switch activities every 20 to 30 minutes. We move from the carpet to the tables to tea break continuously. During my lunch break I crawled into bed with my frogs set to wake me up one minute before lunch was finished. I was glad to have two specialists, with computer and French ending our day. Normally, during this planning time I get everything ready for the next week. Homework sent to the print shop, spelling words chosen, and take-home books piled. Today I just packed my bags, walked home and crawled back into bed.

I woke to my phone. It was my friend Stacey who has been such a peach. She's taken such good care of me, calling a couple times a day to see if I need anything,praying for me, and now she texted me the phone numbers for Reddington who I called to find out my test results. When asked my doctors name I had no clue even after being there the previous two days. I have a hard time remembering their long names full of vowel and consonant combinations that are beautiful but confusing to my Western mental dictionary. Luckily her door is consultant room 6 at the end of the hallway and this helped me to locate her. We talked on the phone about my negative results for cholera (yes!) my negative results for malaria (yes!), but my urine did show I had a UTI. Because of some new symptoms I told her about she wanted me to come in again.

Sue, another helpful and caring colleague, arranged me a ride and we were off. Quickly I found myself sitting at the same desk, talking with the same doctor with an English accent. After talking with her for a sort couple of minutes she said "It looks like we are going to have to admit you to the hospital over night." I about freaked. This is not what I was expecting.This is not something I wanted! After phone calls back to Sue and Tom and Mary Ann and some tears of fear since this was all new to me, I was in the hospital bed with an IV dripping in my veins and the TV blasting some African soap opera where a little boy confronts the local gangsters.

Mary Ann packed a bag and kept me company all night. She was so attentive to my slightest move and would predict my needs before I even asked. She made my stay there so much better. We joked that now we had stayed in a grand total of four different hotel rooms together. This one being our worst since she had to sleep crammed on a leather chair.

Tom, my superintendent, also came to check on me and he checked with the doctors to see exactly with was happening. He wanted to know the medications they were giving me and how they were treating me. Once he got this information he called the consulate doctor to confirm that this was the proper treatment. I appreciated his concern and his efforts to make sure I was ok.

The night was long because of the frequent checks by the nurses. They would turn on the whole sets of lights mumbling their sorrys. They would check my IV and leave mumbling more sorrys. One time Mary Ann looked at her phone and noted they came in and out five times between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock in the morning! Really, there was no need for that.

At 6:00 in the morning they came to check on us again and after this I went to the toilet. As I closed the bathroom door I heard a nurse entering our room and Mary Ann explaining that I would be out in 30 seconds. Instead of waiting they came into the bathroom to check my drip and then insisted on me taking a shower or at least them changing my sheets. I told them that I didn't want either done that I would like to get more sleep. She changed my sheets anyways.

Later in the morning I was talking with Mary Ann about the lack of privacy and how also every time the door opens it's a new face. They never bother to introduce themselves. Out of roughly the 30 people I met in that one nights stay I only was give two names. One was of the first nurse to welcome me Uche who was wonderful and personable. The second was my doctor, but I don't remember his name even after purposely staring at it on his name tag. Trying to etch it into my mind.

As we were talking about this there was a knock at the door. In walks a doctor I didn't recognize and as he is asking me how I'm feeling in walks another person in white knee length lab coat, and in walks another and another. At this point I can't help but let out a huge roar of laughter and when asked why I'm laughing I tell them that I'm surprised there is so many people in the room and it's all a bit overwhelming. Just as quickly as they come in they leave and it's just our doctor and us again. We try to act normal but burst into laughter again and he tells us that's the morning routine here that everyone including the pharmacists and nurses come in. After he had left I turned to Mary Ann and said "How many people were there." She said that she couldn't see all the faces so she had to count shoes and there were 11 people total! Point in case about feeling lack of privacy.

Any ways, Sue came later that morning and talked the doctors into letting me recover at home. I had to sign a consent form and then wait another two hours for them to approve my insurance and order my prescription. We talked about the latest news around school and spring break plans to pass the time.

When I got home I found it just as hard to relax with people coming to the door, phone calls at 6:40 in the morning and what not, but it is nice to be concern after and I did sleep the whole uneventful night in my delicious bed. Today is Thursday and I'm feeling so much better. I'll take one more day off, rest during the weekend and be back full of gusto on Monday!

Thanks for your prayers!