Hard Times

Dear Friends and Family,

Upon admittance

It has been a tough week here in Al Khobar, my hometown.  My thoughts have been overtaken by concern for Carolyn who continues to struggle with her health.  Since last I wrote, Carolyn has spent three days in the hospital getting antibiotics and fluid through an IV.  Hospitals in Saudi Arabia are much like US hospitals with occasional differences that crop up and startle.  Of course no one speaks English as a native speaker, but everyone...well, almost everyone speaks it well enough that you can finally be understood.  But she had all the tests and precautions you would expect in a modern hospital including a CT scan that revealed a large (2cm) stone in her gallbladder.  She was finally cleared to leave the hospital after three days.  What ensued was more sickness.  Carolyn just hasn’t been herself.  Nothing tastes good and she sleeps or rests almost all the time.

A new moniker - The name above her bed

This last week, as a follow up to the CT scan we went back to the hospital to see the latest doctor.  Her gallbladder doctor - soon to be her surgeon - opened with the emphatic recommendation that she have her entire gallbladder removed.  The stone is so large it has already rendered her gallbladder ineffective and a source of infection.

Next, we await a conference with a cardiologist who will evaluate her heart in advance of surgery, and her anesthesiologist.  But the main thing we are waiting for is for her routine dosage of aspirin to dissipate from her system.  Aspirin acts as a blood thinner and makes surgery impossible.  Oh yeah, and we’re waiting for our insurance to be recognized by the hospital.

Starting to feel better

By this time next week, I hope that Carolyn will be back to her old self minus a small piece.  But in the meantime, she feels just awful.  It is unclear what is making her sick.  It could be the antibiotics that she is taking from the kidney infection she is getting over.  Or, it could be her gallbladder which the doctor said will give her some discomfort until it is removed.  

I intended that this blog would be my observations from living in a very different and interesting country.  Instead, I’m writing about sickness and the inside of a hospital.  It is what life has handed us for the moment.  

Best to all.

Getting her third IV site installed

The view from her room

Ready to leave