Welcome Back Clotter

This is his bed, and for those of you who asked, yes it was too short, and no he did not wear a hospital gown, just his own gym shorts and tees! :)

One of the many snacks given through out the day. It deceptively looks like a "Jello Jiggler", but it's not!! Though it was a clever "Bear" shape!! :)

Okay so the post title is a stretch, but it was the best I could come up with in a state of exhaustion!! (Barry says I should be ashamed!! LOL)

So for those of you not on FB and for those who are but haven't heard the "rest of the story" as Paul Harvey use to say, I am going to tell you about the past week which actually starts in November. When we were at our training in the capital city for those two weeks, Barry was not feeling well, and one of the things that was bothering him was his calf muscle (we thought). But it went away and so we moved on.

Which brings us to last week around New Years Eve he was experiencing quite a bit of pain in his leg and then we started noticing that is was swollen and felt like his muscle was knotted. So I begin Googling symptoms and of course you always get the extreme answers online so I proceeded with caution but we started fearing it may be a clot. Then his leg felt hot to the touch and was turning redder than the other so we knew we definitely had a problem. I emailed the company Dr. who lives in a nearby country and asked his opinion,it was the same as what we were suspecting and he told us to have it checked out locally since we have a decent, fairly new hospital here.

The next day Barry went to the ER and they told him it was a muscle strain. He said he was sure that it was more than that so they finally agreed to do a blood test. After the blood test they immediately wanted to admit him for a vascular problem. Later a specialist confirmed he had DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis), a clot. As Barry likes to say, "Once we told them the diagnosis, they've done a great job treating me!" HA! So honestly, I was not keen on him receiving treatment here, it is not the norm, but with a clot, flying to Singapore didn't really seem to be an option and the treatment they suggested was what we were told they would do if he were in the States. The weirdest thing here is that the Dr comes and makes his rounds around 11pm to 1am!! So half of the time Barry was either in pain or in a sleepy state while trying to decipher what the doctor, who doesn't speak English, is saying. Therefore it has been a little tricky for me to get information.

Overall, they have done a decent job with him, here are a few funny examples of questions we asked and the answers we got:

1. Can you give him something for the nausea? Well, he needs to be eating and drinking his milk. You aren't eating. Did you drink your milk earlier? You need to drink milk. (MILK?! Seriously? Who drinks milk when they are nauseous? And if you don't like American hospital food, can you imagine what the hospital food is like over here!! YIKES! I kept bringing food up from home, he has rarely eaten it but it was there if he wanted it.)

2. He is having really bad headaches, can you give him something for it? Well, he is having headaches because his pillows are too high, better to use a flat pillow. (So after sleeping on his flat little mattress with his flat little pillow and taking the medicine which I am assuming gives headaches as a side effect, I brought him his pillows from home so he could be more comfortable, which they did not approve of....pretty sure the pillows were not the cause of the headaches!)

Anyway, that gives you a little run down of my life lately. The kids really miss their daddy and have been camping out in my room each night, which even though I am exhausted, has been fun. They have done really good staying at home with our helper and sometimes by themselves, even cleaning up a major leak that we had in our bedroom. They had it all cleaned up by the time I got home!! Loved that!

On an end note I have learned through this that I am pretty unprepared for an emergency here. I will be coming up with an action plan this week that will leave me more assured of what steps to take in different cases, just in case, because this week I have been reminded that we are "not in Kansas anymore Toto!" It has all been a bit daunting to do this in a second language, when we have never needed this type of vocabulary before. Fortunately our teammates have really helped us to understand and get things done when they are up at the hospital, that has been a huge blessing. Also, since I am not driving yet, they have taken time out of their day to take me back an forth from the hospital every single day even though they are very busy themselves. (We have a major island wide conference for the nationals here this week!) I can never repay them for how they have given of themselves for us!! We are blessed!!

There truly are not words for the gratitude that we feel in our hearts for your love and prayers! You have covered my husband, myself, my children, and the doctors in prayer and we can definitely tell! God has been so good to us and has walked us through a very stressful time. I have been so encouraged reading your little notes and messages on FB, emails, and skype calls! I have the best friends!! We have felt the love you sent our way!!

Stayed tuned next week when we hear Barry say ,"Ooh, ooh, ooh!!" (Sorry, just running with the whole Welcome Back Kotter theme!! Please tell me you remember Horschach? :)