Saturday, October 25, 2008

BACK IN YET ANOTHER HOSPITAL

I am giving serious consideration to writing a guide to Israeli hospitals, with emphasis on those in the north. I've been in three ;Sief in Safed, Poriya in Tiberius, and now Rambam in Haifa,supposedly one of the best in the country. Let's just say for now that it's head and shoulders above the other two. At least they did manage to figure out why the burn and pressure sore before it wouldn't heal. I have a DVT-deep vein thrombosis in my left leg. What fun! Now I get to take rat poison in the guise of Coumadin, if they ever get the dose right. I had a minor case of rat poison poisoning, so they stopped giving it to me for a couple of days.These doctors sure do like their tests. After they poisoned me, they decided that they might have screwed up my liver, but the ultra sound came back just fine. Now they re going on about my left kidney. I'm afraid to ask "What next?" Of course all the time they've been playing with rat poison and a form of heparin, the burn has been ignored. Last night we took off the bandage when I noticed a yellow leak of gunk on the floor. Yuck doesn't even come close. We scrubbed it as best we could and put antibiotic cream on it. This morning there was no improvement at all. Thankfully we go to normal hospital routine tomorrow and a real doctor can look at it.
It hasn't been all bad. My first roomate was a fellow strokee and we had a fine together. Half her neighborhood was here with a wide assortment of medical issues so we had plenty to keep ourselves occupied. No sooner had she left than a young gal arrived on suicide watch. Her first watcher was a young guy and we had much fun teasing him. The next two watchers were no fun at all. She was finally sprung and now I have a lady with terminal cancer and her whole tearful family. She's pretty much doped up and on top of being quiet, she doesn't know any Hebrew.
On the even brighter side, there's a guy from Kiryat Shmonah whose kids come here at least once a day. (you didn't think the lap top just walked here, did you?) This hospital has free wifi, so, I'm back on line!
It was kind of strange the first two days. No one seemed to be too sure what to do with/to me. Then, Achi, my reporter friend, dropped in to visit and his friend, the hospital spokesman also dropped in. It's too bad I couldn't capture the aftermath on video. All of a sudden the nurses, interns and residents were falling all over themselves to be helpful. Even better, all this happened after my first roomie and I caught a senior nurse and gave her the basic outline of a letter we intend to write about the way the staff treats patients here. Oh boy, then, who shows up? A reporter with the hospital spokesman in tow! My leg is getting tired from holding my 30 kilogram lap top (multiply by 2.2 for lbs.) in a somewhat comfortable typing position. And more important, it's time for a smoke!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm so sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations!! i hope that, now they have identified the problem , you will start getting better!!
Take care!! Marge

Purplegimp said...

Marge,
So far so good. I'm home at last, but too tired from running around all morning sorting things at the clinic, getting my 'new record for long' toenails chopped off and something to eat, to do much on the computer. I figure I'll have the routine down pat in a couple of days, and be able to spend more time here.

Anonymous said...

happy to hear you are home! that's a good sign, i hope! hang in there, girl.
hugggggggggggggggggg
Marge

Purplegimp said...

Marge,
Thanks! There is nothing better than being back home.
I'm still tired from the whole thing, and the quacks at my clinic are busy conyradicting themselves and recommending different tratments for the freaking burn. It hurt like hell last night, but has settled down to a dull roar today.
I'm still too off balance to be able to write a coherent post; but, soon.

Anonymous said...

Take your time. health first...blog second. ;-))
just good to know you are on the upside!