***Disclaimer – In this post I will be describing what it was like to stay in a foreign hospital. Please note that we, as Americans, are incredibly privileged. I do believe that the staff here cares, just maybe hasn’t been taught how to show their care to their patients. I am grateful for my time spent here.” ***
A few weeks ago I found myself laying on the ground in severe pain after falling 12-15ft. I opened my eyes to find several strangers looking down at me and arguing in their language. They were trying to ask me if they needed to call an ambulance. I asked my teammate, Jackie, to tell them no. Much to my chagrin, they did it anyway. The EMT’s took my blood pressure, gave me a shot in the hip for pain and I refused any more of their services. I then climbed out of the ambulance and hobbled my way down the hill and back to our place of lodging.
Once there, Jackie helped me undress and climb into the shower, she washed the blood off my legs and hands, and helped me throw on the necessary clothing. I didn’t want to go to the hospital right away because as many of you know, hospitals cause me to have severe anxiety… usually ending in me passing out and shaking. My team insisted that I head to the hospital that night, knowing that I was in a lot of pain. We had trouble calling a taxi so, and I am not sure how I did this, (maybe a mix of adrenaline and a desire to ease the pain) I walked about 20 minutes to the nearest hospital.
When we arrived at the hospital, the nurse told us we were at the wrong place and called us a taxi. The taxi driver, Nikola, would come to be a great help and a friend to our team. He drove me to a hospital around the other side of the bay in Risan, Montenegro. We arrived at the hospital and were taken back to a room where a sweet older man took my x-rays. You are probably imagining an x-ray machine/room similar to what we have at home but this was much different.
The man ushered Jackie and I into a dark room with a steel table. He rather harshly pushed my wrist onto a block and took the x-ray. I was fighting back the tears as he twisted my wrist and went for another x-ray. After this he asked me to climb onto the table, not as easy as it sounds with a fractured spine. I tried to do so but couldn’t so he pulled me up himself and pushed my shoulders back onto the cold steel. He then pushed me onto my side. I would love to say I was strong and I handled the pain well.. but at this point, I was sobbing. The man seemed to notice I was in pain because he was much more gentle going forward.
I don’t remember much from the rest of the night, just that I was taken upstairs and told to lay down. I woke up the next morning, surrounded by several male nurses and doctors. One man, I assumed was the doctor, asked me where my pain was. I showed him and he left.
In the following hours I would be shuffled in and out of the hospital on a gurney, one that did not lower to the height of my bed… unfortunately for my teammate, Joshua. He had to help get me on and off. The gurney rides were always interesting, surrounded by people who were speaking a different language, having the elevator doors close on me, sitting in a hot and sweaty ambulance and listening as Joshua and Jackie tried to work out my insurance information on the phone.
We eventually made it back to the Risan hospital which would become my home for the next week.
To be continued……
