One of the differences that I liked is that they allowed my friends to come and go and they even set up a bed for my friend Serdar and brought him food. Guests are not only welcome, they are encouraged- unlike an American hospital who would only allow relatives to visit me (which would have been a disaster here in Turkey, as there are no relatives)- and then for short periods of time.
After checking into the hospital I noticed the band they put around my wrist said, Brokoks- even though she had my ID right in front of her and could have copied my name correctly. Even Starbucks usually gets it wrong only as far as Briks or Bronx, or- once-Brus. (Now I just tell Starbucks my name is Hocam.)
After taking my blood, I had to wait for an hour before anybody came into the room. I was interviewed twice by two different people and asked the exact same questions. I mentioned that to the second guy- he could copy the answers that I already gave and he said that he was watching my reactions as I answered the questions.
From there I was fitted with an IV needle set up in my left hand, then made to shakily sign about 10 pages with no chance for a translation. I pointed to the writing and said, “you know, for all I know this says that the hospital has rights to my first born.” The nurse giggled and then pointed to the places I was meant to sign.
Next I was given a shot of antibiotics, a pain killer and a shot of something that, “will make you feel like you just had 2 shots of whiskey.” I told the attendant that I have never had 2 shots of whiskey in my life (I couldn’t get past a sip of the stuff) and so I could only guess that they were going to get me stoned.
They wheeled me down the hall and I remember the elevator and the attendant and the nurse arguing. She threw the folder containing my information down onto the bed (maybe forgetting that there was a person in that bed). Things started going fuzzy as they put me onto a table in a very cold room and next thing you know they were waking me up.
I was disoriented as they wheeled me back to my room and put me in bed. After about an hour or an hour and a half I started getting the sweats and feeling nauseous. I was trying to communicate that this was not at all good, but the nurses and attendants looked on and said, “this is normal”. NORMAL? Suddenly I started to become violently ill. The nurses answer to this was to turn on the air conditioner at full blast. I yelled at her to turn that off and then almost chuckled as they put a tiny plastic dish in front of me to get sick in. I actually needed a bucket. Then somebody got the bright idea to give me some anti-nausea medicine and I started to feel better.
Then the splitting headache started. Note to self- if you are going to have an operation, ween yourself off of coffee BEFORE you go in. I knew I was having a caffeine withdrawal, but I couldn’t get anybody to budge on the “doctor’s orders, no coffee” thing. I just had to ride it out.
After that episode, I was more or less normal. As I lay in that bed for nearly 24 hours, I started noticing things were a little different than I expected.
First, they only took one vital sign while I was there- blood pressure. They never took my temperature or listened to my heart or felt my pulse- but at least 10 times they wheeled in that blood pressure machine and took my blood pressure (which has always been either low or normal).
Another thing is the food. They gave me a bowl of yogurt soup (no thank you) and a bowl of sugar water (cold) that had a couple of sunken raisins in it (again, no thanks) twice. For breakfast the next day they gave me bread sticks and tea (still refusing my plea for coffee).
Nurses came in at all times to stick my IV thing with needles- if I didn’t ask them, I’m sure they wouldn’t have told me. I could see that I was on a schedule of antibiotics and “pain killer”.
The next day the doctor came to clean out my wound and redress the bandages. I’m telling you, it was like he didn’t realize there was a living, feeling, breathing person under that wound- he just tore off the bandage and went to work scrubbing, pushing, prodding, eyeing a stitch suspiciously (nobody wants to see that) and tugging on it. I was letting him know in no uncertain terms that I was VERY uncomfortable with what he was doing. He thought it was funny- “it has to be done”.
We paid the doctor- cash- and then waited another hour for our dispatch papers and the prescription for antibiotics and pain killer- something called Apranox Forte. I couldn’t hobble out of that place fast enough.
Now I’m home. I can sit at the computer for about 15 minutes at a time and spend a lot of time lying down. I made some muesli (with Serdar’s help) which is sitting in the fridge soaking up the milk and the yogurt. Serdar also made me mashed potatoes. I’m basically on a diet of muesli, mashed potatoes, cucumbers, bananas and fresh figs.
I’m glad to be home and now have more incentive than EVER to eat right and exercise- I really am going to do my best to stay out of a hospital at least until it’s my time to meet my maker (and even then, I hope that it happens at home).
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