Instalment 3

Let me draw you a picture. I am lying on a very old metal framed bed. The one inch mattress is held up by latticed metal wiring. There is an IV attached to my arm. The IV fluid is contained in 1 liter glass jars and is standing high on an old metal stand with chipping paint. I look around and there are four other beds in my room, three of them occupied. None of the occupants seem that sick as they all seem to have left the room. There is no decoration in the room at all. Attached to our small room is a bathroom with the necessities. In the entry way to our room is a window where our food is dropped off and a sink. Outside are two long hallways with patience wandering about. The nurses’ station is at the end of the longest hallway. My only visits there were for shots, which always occurred with the door open.
In the middle of my observations a surgeon and also the head doctor came in to look at me.
She felt around my lower stomach and asked me where it hurt and then she left without a word. A nurse came in and gave me three different kinds of medication and told me I needed to take one an hour before every meal, one at every meal, and one half an hour after breakfast and dinner. She failed to tell me when meals were. I ended up relying on my room mates for quite a bit of information.
My first night in the hospital I was exhausted and in pain so I quickly tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately sleep was hard to come by. One of my room mates snored rather loudly and another talked on her cell phone into the wee hours of the morning. The nurse came in once in the middle of the night to run a very painful test on me and then again a few hours later to give me another shot. Then in the early hours of the morning she came in once to ask if any of us wanted to take our own temperatures and again to collect our stool samples, which none of us had.
Throughout my hospital stay I was in contact with a doctor at the international clinic in Moscow and double checking all of the treatment I was receiving. This gave me some level of assurance. The only thing that they disagreed on was the pain killer shot injected muscularly. Saturday went pretty much the same, except that I was feeling better. The weekend doctor came in once to feel my stomach and never even looked at my room mates. I stayed on the medication and that was all the treatment I received. I was able to walk outside on the grounds. My room mates would leave the compound completely and go home or somewhere in town and return hours later. On Saturday one room mate was released and another joined us. With our new foursome the conversation seemed to flow easier and they included me. It was nice to talk but it was also draining. They talked until after 10 at night, when we are all in the hospital. I was exhausted and finally they noticed and turned out the lights so I could try and sleep.
Sunday started out the same as Saturday with the exception of the doctor. I didn’t see the doctor at all on Sunday. I went to the nurse’s station and asked for my own release on Sunday afternoon. The minimum stay was 5 days and the average was 8. I was ready to leave and the international clinic in Moscow agreed that I was ready. I signed my release and very easily walked out the front door, on the stipulation that I return the next day to pay and get my release from the doctor.
The story doesn’t end there; in fact I don’t yet know how the story ends. I do plan on writing more tomorrow.