This past weekend I ended up in the ER. Everything is fine now; the consensus is that I had a ruptured ovarian cyst which was very, VERY painful but not life-threatening in any way. That's the good news. The bad news is this past weekend I was in the ER in Qatar, which was...challenging, to say the least! My trip was filled with many Not-so-Small Miracles, however, and, WARNING, it's a very long story.
My entry was dramatic, of course. The boys and I were going to the St. Regis hotel to see their festive market before heading to the Marriott for a gingerbread house making session. In the parking lot, I doubled over in pain and couldn't walk. I did finally make it up to the bathroom, using the boys as canes, but after a half hour there, things just got worse, so I prayed for help because I literally didn't know what else to do. Within minutes, I got a text from my friend R. whom we had seen earlier in the day, who had decided to to the St. Regis because we were going. She was leaving when she texted but was quickly able to turn around and get back to us. Her husband J. is a doctor, and another friend, another R. was also in the area, so the first R. arranged to get the second R. and his car up to the entrance to take me to the hospital with J. while she bundled the kids into her car and took them home with her, for what ended up being a sleepover on a school night. Not-so-Small Miracle #1: the children, while hysterically crying that they were never going to see me again when we were waiting in the lobby for the car to take me to the ER, were soon happily playing on iPads at her house and settled right in because they are so comfortable with her and her children.
On the way to the hospital, I called my other friend S. because we realized that J. and the other R. couldn't go with me into the women's ER because they are men who are not related to me. Of course! Luckily for me, though arguably not for them, S. and her husband were out on a date very close to the hospital and were even able to beat us there. Not-so-Small Miracle #2: I would never have made it through my many hours there without S. nor do I think I would have gotten any of the treatment I needed without her insisting that the nurses follow through on the doctor's orders and keeping track of what medications they were giving me.
When we arrived, everyone went to find a wheelchair because I was in so much pain I couldn't stand, much less walk, and a short, stout Qatari woman in full veil hurried over to us and then walked us into the building. She walked over to the reception desk and made sure they were filling out my paperwork with my health card, then motioned us into the first triage room ahead of all the people waiting inside, and then essentially pushed the patient who was already in with the nurse out of the way. After they took my vitals, she said a few more things to the staff and then pushed us back into the second triage area, demanding that they get me into a room and that the doctor hurry right over to look at me. He did, though he was borderline incompetent as he took my history and palpated my abdomen, but the Qatari woman kept coming back and forth, asking S. if she needed water or coffee, and saying soothing things about how it wouldn't be long now and the pain would be under control soon. Eventually, they decided we needed to go to a third triage room for morphine, and they told me to wait for another wheelchair, at which point she unlocked my bed and rolled it out of the room, saying with a dismissive shake of her head, "Why wait? We will go!" The nurses there discussed it and said they really needed to wait for the wheelchair since there wasn't enough room for a bed there, so she scurried off to get a wheelchair, I guess. After she had gone, one of the nurses turned to us and said "Is she your friend?" We both gaped and said "No, we thought she worked here!" Oh, no no, they said, we don't know who she is....what the what?? Someone else did bring a wheelchair and got me to the next room for an IV (but no pain meds yet) and she came in once more, expensive purse over her shoulder and told the nurse putting in my IV "You take very good care of her; she is a very important person!" before she disappeared out a door, never to be seen again. Not-so-Small Miracle #3: I was provided with my very own Qatari Guardian Angel!
Soon, we were ushered into yet another room, and finally, finally, I was given morphine, which made me feel much better, though pretty nauseous. They decided I needed an ultrasound and perhaps a CT scan, and they told me it would be two hours before I could get the ultrasound because there was only one in use in the entire hospital...! So we waited. And we waited. And we waited. In the meantime, however, my friends had contacted other doctor friends who were working behind the scenes to move things along and a nice American doctor who was on call appeared to tell us that my ultrasound request had been denied because they asked for a Doppler test as well and apparently only an OBGYN can order such a test here, so he had to go fight the good fight to get an exception made, which he did. He was also very helpful in getting more pain meds on board, since the pain never really did go away, which was not fun at all. They are funny about narcotics here: they do not like to give more than Tylenol in almost every case, so we had to fight to convince them that morphine and then, later, fentanyl were appropriate in this case. Or rather, S. had to fight with them since I was too out of it. She and one of the nurses had an argument about which was more damaging to your kidneys and liver at this point, narcotics or Tylenol, but S. won the day by enlisting another helpful doctor, though the nurse then took forever to give the dose in retaliation.
After we had been waiting for over 7 hours with still no ultrasound and not much radical improvement in pain, my doctor friends sprung into action. One surgeon, G., whom I had only ever met just briefly, appeared in the ER and started wheeling me into various scans himself, talking through and around the technicians and doctors in his way and finally getting me an ultrasound, x-rays, and a CT. He was livid that I had been waiting for so long with no progress, especially after he determined that the reason I was still waiting is that several people had just simply decided not to pick up a phone and make a call, so he took it upon himself to rally people into action and read the results himself. Not-so-Small Miracle #4: I shudder to think how much longer we would have been sitting there had he not stepped in. As it was, we finally limped home after 1am.
A day later, I was still in some pain but it was manageable, and the boys were back home with me, much to their delight. Friends brought over dinner a few nights and I was able to take it easy and rest a lot while the boys were at school and at play dates in the compound, which helped a ton. Of course, the husband was out of town while all this was going on, but I was texting and talking to him while I was in the ER, as were our doctor friends and S., so he was kept apprised of everything. He wanted to come right home, but I told him not to once I was fairly sure it wasn't anything surgical. He was at an important industry meeting and then was going to see his 103 year old grandmother, and I didn't want him to miss any of that when I was sure I would be fine in a few days (Doctor G. agreed with me, which helped sway the husband my way). Of course, I was sad that he wasn't able to be there through all this, but I really did feel very taken care of throughout the ordeal and in the succeeding days, so I am glad that we decided he should stay put. Not-so-Small Miracle #5: even in the husband's absence, I was in capable hands. Not-so-Small Miracle #6: I had not realized just how many friendships we had developed here and just how strong those friendships were until I saw everyone around me leap into action and solve all my problems from taking care of my children to getting me to the hospital to watching the nurses to make sure they gave me the right drugs to bringing me dinner to washing my children's school uniforms to checking in on me by text, phone, and Facebook to make sure I was alright. I'm happy to discover our friendship network here is now just as strong as it has been in other places we've lived; this is very comforting!
Since then, it appears that our doctor friends have raised my case as a complaint against the system and the hospital is doing an internal investigation to figure out what when wrong and why. This development is a little comforting, but just a little. I don't want to have to have a phalanx of outside doctors surrounding me every time anyone I know has to go the hospital just to make sure something gets done correctly and in a timely matter! But that is a worry for another day!
My entry was dramatic, of course. The boys and I were going to the St. Regis hotel to see their festive market before heading to the Marriott for a gingerbread house making session. In the parking lot, I doubled over in pain and couldn't walk. I did finally make it up to the bathroom, using the boys as canes, but after a half hour there, things just got worse, so I prayed for help because I literally didn't know what else to do. Within minutes, I got a text from my friend R. whom we had seen earlier in the day, who had decided to to the St. Regis because we were going. She was leaving when she texted but was quickly able to turn around and get back to us. Her husband J. is a doctor, and another friend, another R. was also in the area, so the first R. arranged to get the second R. and his car up to the entrance to take me to the hospital with J. while she bundled the kids into her car and took them home with her, for what ended up being a sleepover on a school night. Not-so-Small Miracle #1: the children, while hysterically crying that they were never going to see me again when we were waiting in the lobby for the car to take me to the ER, were soon happily playing on iPads at her house and settled right in because they are so comfortable with her and her children.
On the way to the hospital, I called my other friend S. because we realized that J. and the other R. couldn't go with me into the women's ER because they are men who are not related to me. Of course! Luckily for me, though arguably not for them, S. and her husband were out on a date very close to the hospital and were even able to beat us there. Not-so-Small Miracle #2: I would never have made it through my many hours there without S. nor do I think I would have gotten any of the treatment I needed without her insisting that the nurses follow through on the doctor's orders and keeping track of what medications they were giving me.
When we arrived, everyone went to find a wheelchair because I was in so much pain I couldn't stand, much less walk, and a short, stout Qatari woman in full veil hurried over to us and then walked us into the building. She walked over to the reception desk and made sure they were filling out my paperwork with my health card, then motioned us into the first triage room ahead of all the people waiting inside, and then essentially pushed the patient who was already in with the nurse out of the way. After they took my vitals, she said a few more things to the staff and then pushed us back into the second triage area, demanding that they get me into a room and that the doctor hurry right over to look at me. He did, though he was borderline incompetent as he took my history and palpated my abdomen, but the Qatari woman kept coming back and forth, asking S. if she needed water or coffee, and saying soothing things about how it wouldn't be long now and the pain would be under control soon. Eventually, they decided we needed to go to a third triage room for morphine, and they told me to wait for another wheelchair, at which point she unlocked my bed and rolled it out of the room, saying with a dismissive shake of her head, "Why wait? We will go!" The nurses there discussed it and said they really needed to wait for the wheelchair since there wasn't enough room for a bed there, so she scurried off to get a wheelchair, I guess. After she had gone, one of the nurses turned to us and said "Is she your friend?" We both gaped and said "No, we thought she worked here!" Oh, no no, they said, we don't know who she is....what the what?? Someone else did bring a wheelchair and got me to the next room for an IV (but no pain meds yet) and she came in once more, expensive purse over her shoulder and told the nurse putting in my IV "You take very good care of her; she is a very important person!" before she disappeared out a door, never to be seen again. Not-so-Small Miracle #3: I was provided with my very own Qatari Guardian Angel!
Soon, we were ushered into yet another room, and finally, finally, I was given morphine, which made me feel much better, though pretty nauseous. They decided I needed an ultrasound and perhaps a CT scan, and they told me it would be two hours before I could get the ultrasound because there was only one in use in the entire hospital...! So we waited. And we waited. And we waited. In the meantime, however, my friends had contacted other doctor friends who were working behind the scenes to move things along and a nice American doctor who was on call appeared to tell us that my ultrasound request had been denied because they asked for a Doppler test as well and apparently only an OBGYN can order such a test here, so he had to go fight the good fight to get an exception made, which he did. He was also very helpful in getting more pain meds on board, since the pain never really did go away, which was not fun at all. They are funny about narcotics here: they do not like to give more than Tylenol in almost every case, so we had to fight to convince them that morphine and then, later, fentanyl were appropriate in this case. Or rather, S. had to fight with them since I was too out of it. She and one of the nurses had an argument about which was more damaging to your kidneys and liver at this point, narcotics or Tylenol, but S. won the day by enlisting another helpful doctor, though the nurse then took forever to give the dose in retaliation.
After we had been waiting for over 7 hours with still no ultrasound and not much radical improvement in pain, my doctor friends sprung into action. One surgeon, G., whom I had only ever met just briefly, appeared in the ER and started wheeling me into various scans himself, talking through and around the technicians and doctors in his way and finally getting me an ultrasound, x-rays, and a CT. He was livid that I had been waiting for so long with no progress, especially after he determined that the reason I was still waiting is that several people had just simply decided not to pick up a phone and make a call, so he took it upon himself to rally people into action and read the results himself. Not-so-Small Miracle #4: I shudder to think how much longer we would have been sitting there had he not stepped in. As it was, we finally limped home after 1am.
A day later, I was still in some pain but it was manageable, and the boys were back home with me, much to their delight. Friends brought over dinner a few nights and I was able to take it easy and rest a lot while the boys were at school and at play dates in the compound, which helped a ton. Of course, the husband was out of town while all this was going on, but I was texting and talking to him while I was in the ER, as were our doctor friends and S., so he was kept apprised of everything. He wanted to come right home, but I told him not to once I was fairly sure it wasn't anything surgical. He was at an important industry meeting and then was going to see his 103 year old grandmother, and I didn't want him to miss any of that when I was sure I would be fine in a few days (Doctor G. agreed with me, which helped sway the husband my way). Of course, I was sad that he wasn't able to be there through all this, but I really did feel very taken care of throughout the ordeal and in the succeeding days, so I am glad that we decided he should stay put. Not-so-Small Miracle #5: even in the husband's absence, I was in capable hands. Not-so-Small Miracle #6: I had not realized just how many friendships we had developed here and just how strong those friendships were until I saw everyone around me leap into action and solve all my problems from taking care of my children to getting me to the hospital to watching the nurses to make sure they gave me the right drugs to bringing me dinner to washing my children's school uniforms to checking in on me by text, phone, and Facebook to make sure I was alright. I'm happy to discover our friendship network here is now just as strong as it has been in other places we've lived; this is very comforting!
Since then, it appears that our doctor friends have raised my case as a complaint against the system and the hospital is doing an internal investigation to figure out what when wrong and why. This development is a little comforting, but just a little. I don't want to have to have a phalanx of outside doctors surrounding me every time anyone I know has to go the hospital just to make sure something gets done correctly and in a timely matter! But that is a worry for another day!
Good heavens! What next? Just got caught up on December. So sorry about all that school drama! Sounds just awful.
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