My Morning at the Oblastnaya Hospital
We - Mel, Sergei K. and I - left the Diagnostic Center and slowly, oh so slowly walked up the street to the Oblastnaya Hospital (from here on it will be refered to as OH). I am amazed at how slow I walk right now - very frustrating. I know it's hard for other people who are walking with me because walking very slowly seems to take a whole lot more energy than walking at a normal pace or slightly faster. At least it's always been that way for me.
The gatehouse into the property of the OH is, of course, at the farthest point away from the Diagnostic Center. :) There is a solid wall about chin high on me with bars that go up several feet higher than that that surrounds three sides of the OH property. The gatehouse is situated at one of the corners of that wall. It looks like a teeny little house with a teeny little door set into the wall. Mel and Sergei had to duck to walk through the door. It's actually about a meter or meter and a half deep, with a tiled floor and whitewashed walls. On the other side, inside the property there is a - guess what! You guessed it - a cracked and broken step down onto the sidewalk.
We needed the building farthest away from where we happened to be, so Sergei took off as guide and leader in front of us. Whenever the pavement got too uneven for me, I'd grab Mel's arm or hand and hold on until we were on more level asphalt. It's actually quite pretty inbetween the buildings - lots of trees and flowers. During the spring and fall months whenever we walk by on the street, we often see women dressed like nurses all in white out there doing yard work - sweeping, digging, planting, painting the trees, and so forth. I've heard that everyone has to take a turn, but I've never seen a man out there. If you are a nurse, can you imagine being scheduled on Tues and Thurs. of next week to work out in the hospital grounds pulling weeds or sweeping up leaves all day? All that to say, it really is quite pleasant and park-like inbetween the old Soviet buildings.
When we got to the correct building, there was of all things, a handicapped or wheelchair ramp! I walked up it and we went in the one unlocked door, scooted over to the second unlocked door (see first post for explanation) and into the building. Boy was it hot in there! Sergei stood in front of the sign saying where every office was located and finally decided that we needed an office on the fourth floor.
Guess what? Sergei didn't see the elevator, and when Mel did, we still weren't sure if it really worked or not. So, up three flights of stairs to the fourth floor. This place was a lot brighter and there were a lot more people standing or sitting on benches against the wall, or walking around here and there, and we could actually see each other's faces! (Why did that guy sitting over there keep staring at me, anyway???) The elevator door opened and voila! it worked and people came out - not just employees, but patients. There was a sign on the door - only 4 people at a time in the elevator.
Sergei talked to a couple who were waiting with x-rays in their hands (yes, he was the guy who kept staring at me), and decided to go downstairs and see if there was someone else who would see me. To make a long story short and to save identification of the person involved, he was told to go to a certain room and ask that person if I could be seen. Apparently the answer was yes - but I had to go see the first official person first.
I took the elevator and they took the stairs and we went to the correct floor, waited for our turn in a group standing around outside this person's door and when the person/possibly a patient inside came out - we went inside.
Sergei explained what we needed, the person in there looked me up and down a couple times and then wrote something on a piece of paper. Sergei took the paper and we left the room.
It seems that I looked pretty good because this person decided I looked like $50 worth of consultation. Not bad, you say? Well think of it this way - I paid $6 for two x-rays and if I'd been a Ukrainian I would have had to pay maybe $5 or $6 for the consultation. We know this. We often have to pay more because we are foreigners. But $50 worth of someone looking at my knee and saying, "yep, it's a knee! and yep, it does seem to hurt you! and yep, the x-rays don't really show us very much. goodbye" seemed a little much to all three of us. Someone was going to get a hefty little gift 'under the table.'
We stood in the hallway and debated - yes or no. I wanted to sit down, take a load of my knees and stop sweating for awhile. We came to a consensus - let's go eat lunch.
So, I caught the wonderful, amazing, unbelievably clean and well-lighted little elevator back down to the ground floor and we left. I even walked down the steps instead of taking the handicapped ramp (and they were ALL the same height!) and we took off. Of course the place we wanted to eat was two long blocks away, but both Mel and Sergei were patient and they ambled and I hobbled my way back up the street, around the corner and down two blocks.
How wonderful to sit outside, under the awning, drinking cherry juice and gas water, conversing about all sorts of things, and then eating our Greek salads and chicken fingers dipped in honey/hot mustard sauce (the guys had French fries, too). We sat for a long time and it was great. My x-rays had been placed inside a folded up newspaper at the Diagnostic Clinic and I read various advertisements from it while we sat. Didn't understand much of them, but it was fun looking at the letters.
After we finished, Mel called a taxi and we went to wait for it. We could have found a taxi waiting on the street somewhere, but I wasn't up for walking around until one appeared. So - he called. We waited about 15 minutes, the taxi came and brought us home.
Home! My cat! Air conditioner! My chair! Street shoes off, inside shoes on! Knitting waiting for me! Ahhhhh. Very nice.
Maybe I'll call the clinic in Kiev and set up an appointment there. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, actually, but I know I'm at a point where I have to do something, and do it soon. I really don't want to go to Kiev right now...but do I have a choice?? Decisions, decisions.
And that, my readers, was my day today. Oh - and the women's Bible study downstairs late this afternoon. :):) I'm looking forward to bed now. This was a hard, typically Ukrainian day. Not unusual for Ukrainians (except for the coffee at the Iceberg and lunch at the Pub - that would be unusual for most of the people we know), but it was very unusual for us.
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