Hospital

Dear friends, last time I wrote I had been ill with a head cold. After being sick for about three weeks, I thought it was time to visit the Doctor. My cold had developed in stages. First I had a horrible head ache and stuffed up nose. This developed into a slight sore throat. My head began to clear up and I was almost completely recovered. However my throat went from slightly soar, to so sore I didn’t want to open my mouth and went everywhere with a scarf wrapped around my neck to keep any cold air away. My sore throat spread so that when I swallowed my right ear hurt. It was in this tired and weary condition that I left Vapnyarka to meet my family in Kiev.

I left on Thursday night to arrive in Kiev Friday and my family arrived at the air port Saturday morning. After dragging them around town to some of the sights we boarded a train to Chernovtsy. When we arrived on Sunday Morning, I was not only tired from the journey but still ill. Era, my friend who had gone to Kiev with me for the children’s conference, was also sick with similar symptoms.

Verra’s sister called to schedule us appointments at the “Nose, Ear, and Throat” doctor. The doctor I was to meet with new I was an American, but it was important to conceal my identity from others working or the price of my visit would have quickly grown from about 100 Grieven to 100 dollars. In other words I was a very quiet patient, who followed the hand gestures and allowed Era and Vera’s sister to do all of the talking.

The hospital we visited that early Monday morning was cinematic. It looked as if it was part of a WWII movie set. The observation room was large. Pale baby blue tiles lined the bottom five feet of the walls. The rest of the walls and the ceiling were white, just like the nurses uniforms. The room was dimly lit. A long table ran down the center of the room, dividing it into two areas. The wall left of the table had some large and interesting equipment. The right side was lined by six small examination stations. The back wall was where you could find sinks and cabinets with supplies.

I was taken to one of the examination stations. It consisted of a chair with its back against the wall. Beside it was a metal cart. The cart shelves were filled with medicines and tools used in the examination process. At each station there was also a light bulb with a pull string protruding from the wall.

I sat in the chair. The doctor pulled up a bench beside me and turned on the light. On the doctors head was a head mirror, one of those round mirrors on a head band seen in pictures of doctors long ago. After Era explained my symptoms, the doctor began the examination. First he looked up my nose using a metal cone with holes at both ends. Then he used one of these metal cones to look in my ears. My mouth was next. He placed a mirror on a stick, like the one most doctors use, on the light bulb beside my head. After it was a little warm I opened wide and he took a look. He asked Era a few more questions and had the nurse come and take me to the table in the middle of the room while he examined Erra.

To be honest, I didn’t know exactly what was going on. The nurse took me to the table and sat me down. She had me put my right arm on the table. Then I was to lay my head down on it, with my right ear down on my arm. To my surprise she started pouring some liquid in my left ear. She left me to sit. I could feel air bubbles escaping my ear through the fluid. A few minutes later, the nurse came back with a plastic bib, which she tied around my neck and placed the bib over my left arm, under my ear filled with liquid. She left and came back again, this time with a syringe of water and a kidney shaped tray. She placed the tray against my neck and told me to hold it. She then sat my head back up, so that the liquid began emptying into the tray. Without warning, she put the syringe to my ear and blasted the water inside. The tray caught the water fall flowing out of my ear. She sent me back to the doctor. He examined my ears again. He sent my two chaperones and I out with further instructions.

It wasn’t till I was outside that I found out we were going to get X-rays. We walked to a dentist office to have the photo taken but they were not able to do it. We got on a bus, rode a few blocks, and went to another hospital. Their X-ray center was not open for another two hours. We walked down the street a little further to another hospital. We arrived 10 minutes before the X-ray center would be open. There were a couple of people here before us. We had to wait our turn. It was while we were waiting that Era informed me that it would cost 10 Grieven, that is less than 2 Dollars. She was hoping that it wasn’t too expensive. I also found out that I was the only one getting an X-ray. Apparently, the doctor thought my nostrils were unusual. When he asked Era if I had problems breathing and if I sneezed often, she told yes that I had lots of problems with it. I am still not sure why she told him this.

It was my turn. Vera’s sister went in the room and guessed the answers to the questions the X-ray operator asked about my birth date and weight. I watched as they prepared a huge machine that reminded me of the shrinking machine from “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”. I sat in front of it on a bench, inches away from a big board. The technician arranged my head so that I was looking up at the ceiling with my mouth open and my chin pressed to the bored. When they asked Vera’s sister to leave the room I decided it would probably be wise to close my eyes while they took the picture. After waiting another 10 minutes, I paid and for my picture. We hurried back to the doctor. He looked at it in amusement. Although I think he found it a little unusual, there was nothing medically wrong. (Honestly, I have to wonder what they were thinking. Even if they would have found something wrong, there was no way they were operating.) With X-ray and prescription in hand we were free to leave.



Era and I went to the pharmacy where we bought two medicines. The first was a nose spray. Two sprays up each nostril, twice a day. The second medicine was drops that were to be dripped into the nose 20 minutes after the spray. We were also instructed to take vitamins. The next morning I woke up and used my nose spray. During my 20 minute wait I picked up the boxes to see if I could figure out what I was taking. I picked up the box for the drop medicine. I found a word I recognized. To my surprise and amusement it was the word for eyes. That’s right, I was supposed to drop eye drops up my nose. I decided to skip this step. The next day I was feeling much better. I believe the cold had finally run its course. I have kept the eye drops with my other medicines just in case I ever have red eyes.