Surgery, Croatian style

I've shared with some of you, via email, our recent experiences of having surgery at a Croatian hospital. It was interesting, educational and stressful. Though we've met many excellent, talented and highly qualified physicians here, their work environment, pay and equipment are significantly lacking. The level of care in the end may be more than satisfactory, but the overall experience is usually grueling. Despite that, some, like our wonderful pediatrician, do an awesome job working out of a tiny, run down pediatric office where I still feel like my kid gets the best care possible. But, due to lack of pediatricians, at school age kids have to shift away from a pediatrician to a general practitioner. Kids are very different from adults so I am not too fond of the idea of having to do that.

The fun usually starts when one tries to get to a healthcare facility. Whether it is a hospital or a clinic, you are almost guaranteed not to have a parking space available anywhere close by. Not even at a childrens' hospital. Many people come from other cities to Zagreb just to find that it is nearly impossible for them to park close to a hospital to get their sick child/parent/relative the surgery or health exam that they need. Once one fights traffic, poorly marked streets, uncooperative pedestrians, one person usually stays with the car and drives around in a vain attempt to park somewhere (often illegally), while the other person takes the child/parent/relative in to the hospital. The fact that one is surrounded with exceptionally beautiful historic buildings and scenery somehow loses significance when you're sick and trying to get health care. With enough luck a parking spot will be located within a reasonable distance and the driver will join others inside just to trek outside every hour to pay a hefty fee at the parking meter. Just to make things more interesting, most parking areas (depending on what area of town it is in) have a 1-3 hour parking limit. Last time at the Childrens' hospital I was there with Mia to get a pre-surgery ECG. Two frantic out of town parents were trying to get enough change for a parking meter. Apparently at a cash only kiosk in front of the hospital, they couldn't get any change for the meter. Either they already gave out all the change or were stingy and declined to assist. Fortunately I had just enough to help them and the kid's dad gratefully ran out to pay for another hour of parking. As if it is not stressful enough to have a sick kid in the first place.

We've encountered situations where we needed to go to two or three equally difficult to access locations to get the lab work that we need. We've had throat swabs done at our local office just to have to run the sample to the hospital lab downtown ourselves within the allotted three hours. We've come back to all of those locations to pick up results a day or two later to take those results to our pediatrician so we could get a referral and then take the results to the specialist. In all cases we got the care that we needed at a satisfactory level but really had to work for it, go to many places, spend a long time waiting in line (hours sometimes) to get things done. Who can afford that much time off work? That just really gets stressful.

Mia was scheduled to get her tonsils out and to have a cyst from her head removed. We made an initial visit to the specialist a few weeks prior which helped me learn the area around the hospital a little bit. The morning of the surgery we had to meander around for quite some time to look for parking. We managed to illegally squeeze into someone’s front yard and then walk a bit to the hospital and were some 10 minutes late for our pre-surgery anesthesia check up. Fortunately I knew a bit about what to expect and what should occur so I knew that Mia was fine and fit for surgery. She had a pediatric visit two days prior but much can change with kids even overnight. We only did paperwork prior to the surgery. They didn't weight her, check her temperature, checked lung function, heart rate... Either Birmingham's Childrens' spoiled me with being overzealous by doing all of that prior to their surgeries or this place was way under-zealous by doing none of it. I wasn't given a chance to read through the sheet that lists dangers of anesthesia but had to sign it. I knew what it should say from prior experience. What if this were our first surgery?

Finally we were placed into a room. We were in a 10x12ft room that held 4 cribs and two beds. And in the beds were post-surgical adults, not kids, as the hospital ran out of beds in rooms for grownups. On top of that there wasn’t a single chair in the room as parents aren’t really supposed to stay, I guess. I stuck around all day anyway, mostly standing, leaning, improvising... Mia's had nothing to eat or since the night before but she dealt with it well. Finally, at about 9:30, they got Mia into surgery. Even I didn't know we were about to go into surgery. That's how well we were informed. I though we had a test to do when the nurse stopped me and said I couldn't go any further. Mia was so mad about that once she got out of surgery because they lied to her and caught her off guard. That alone could have been the sole reason why she screamed for hours after the surgery.

Mia was supposed to stay overnight afterward but I insisted she be discharged. Even though she was fine and the actual surgery, I think, went well, everything else was a mess. We had two surgeries at a Childrens' Hospital a few years back. This was like going to a two star hotel after staying at a five star hotel. Mia was scared out of her mind. She didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did and she was scared. Staff wasn’t overly informative so half the time I had no clue what was going on. In addition one of the adults in the room looked quite bad after surgery and Mia just couldn’t stomach seeing someone in distress and bleeding. As a result, she wailed and literally screamed about 80% of the time (possibly more) starting the moment she was wheeled out of surgery at 10am until we left at 5pm. I think that made her throat do even worse than it would have been otherwise. She was stronger than anesthesia or any other meds they gave her twice to try to calm her screaming down. I think they agreed to discharge us as I warned them that Mia was not about to stop screaming and that she would persist through the night. It wasn't an empty threat. Mia has the stamina of a stubborn mule and can outlast any adult that has had the luck to love and take care of her since she was a baby. We know from previous experience that she can literally go for hours without stopping. It's one of her amazing talents. When I saw that I couldn't calm her down at all I knew that everyone around her would be in for a treat. So they let us go. We lived within the city limits so they figured that we'd be able to quickly get to the ER should the need arise.

I was so relieved once we were outside the hospital. I held Mia most of the day so I was already tired. On top of that I am not in the best shape of my life. Still, I wasn't about to turn around and go back. I picked Mia up and put her little backpack on my back, and headed up the hill to our car which was about a mile away. Mia was quiet and kept patting my back. Somehow in her little head she understood that it was really hard for me to carry her and she was appreciative because I was taking care of her. She hasn't shed a tear since we were discharged. From a screaming banshee she has turned into a quiet, patient, understanding child. The kid really knows how to get what she wants. Finally I got to the car. I was secretly scared that it might have gotten towed. Fortunately, it was still there and we headed home.

Mia was relieved to get home at the end of the day and has asked to go sleep almost immediately. Quietly and without fuss she got comfy in my bed and fell asleep almost instantly. Many years ago grandma warned us about dangers of dehydration so I did my best to get her to drink at least a little bit during the night. A good night's sleep and familiar environment did wonders and she woke up feeling tons better. She still wouldn't let me touch stitches on her head for a while but perked up and everything was easy-breezy after that (in comparison anyway). Phew!

Summer days

Summer is late coming to Croatia this year. Probably not a bad thing. It's been nice and cool last eight weeks, though exceptionally rainy. We even turned heat on and off a few times. Rain and clouds finally went away. We're now "enjoying" only our second day of hot, sunny, true summer weather. Well, there's no air conditioning, fans are on high, and we're dreaming of swimming pools and cool ocean breezes.

The art of an open window

Since we've moved to Croatia, we've grown used to opening our windows a good bit. Granted, much of it is out of necessity because we don't have air conditioning. There certainly are hot summer days when having air conditioning feels like it should be top priority in life. As I am sitting at my computer listening to birds chirping away outside and feeling cool, rain saturated air sneak around the blanket in my lap, I can't help but wonder if, once back in the US, we'll promptly fall back into a routine of sealing off the doors and windows and cranking the AC up. I'd say that it's very likely. It'll be a shame though. I wonder if we'll have any birds chirping around our new home but will fail to hear them.

It's time for an update

It is time for an update on what we've been up to, don't you think. Well, it's been waaaaay busy. Here's the skinny on recent events...

Exactly one month ago, April 11th to be exact, Chris and I had a huge talk and made a joint, monumental decision that we should move back to the US. Decision was based on many, many complex factors but we both agreed that it was time. Even though there are lots of great things we love about our home, the city and the country we currently live in, we felt it best for our family's long term well being to relocate again. Factors taken in consideration were certainly job and career prospects as well as future education opportunities for kids. Once the decision was confirmed and final, there seemed no good reason to delay things so we got to work. We're not very good at waiting. And that started an avalanche of events so we could insure kids find themselves in just the right school and good school system when classes start on August 11th. Actually, I can't believe that it's been only 30 days since we started this mess.

In those 30 days we did a ton of stuff to improve our home. Minor repairs and such. Lots of cleaning and still a whole lot more to go. Getting the home ready certainly is a huge task, especially when you have three gremlins (2 kids+cat) dilligently and thoroghlly undoing anything that might have been done. Any cleaned up toys promptly reappear in their original location, mirrors get toothpaste smeared on them, dirty socks and underwear miraculously appear out of nowhere right in the path of anyone that might be visiting. You know, the usual, fun stuff.

We've had meetings with 3 different moving companies and are still in negotiations about the service. The process is a bit more grueling than originally anticipated. I think it'll be worth it in the long run but is certainly stressful., I hope to have at least that off my to do list soon. I am also determined not to leave the kitty behind as I would miss her terribly. There are certainly issues with that as well. In the end, I think we'll be handling the pet transport ourselves which should save us some money and hopefully make the cat's trip back simpler. But, it will be more difficult for us. She's worth it though and she knows it. So, I am penciling in several visits to the vet and a bunch of phone calls to airlines.

We already managed to find a home that we fell in love with in the US, site unseen. But, we did see the floor plans and photos and trust me, you can tell a lot just from that. So my darling hubby is coming over on Saturday for two weeks to work on that, and look for work, and look for a car, and arrange school attendance, and all that. In the meantime I am trying to sell our home here in record time. We've had some interest but no serious buyers yet. I admit that's a lot of pressure. We're (in my opinion, anyway) being quite reasonable with the asking price and all. It's just that it's a difficult sellers market here. It's also hard to find good representation here. At least from my experience thus far. I do have quite high standards I admit but if I am going to have someone represent me, especially if I am out of the country during the process, I better be able to trust them. My meeting with a real estate agent today did not please me. Now, last time we sold a home I stubbornly insisted not to hire a real estate agent. True to my word we didn't do it then and have done all of the prep work and negotiations on our own. Miraculously, everything worked out. Well, I need another miracle, I suppose. :)

Wish us luck. There's still much to do. I have one more birthday party to organize, one special goodbye party to plan for the kids, Mia is scheduled to have her tonsils removed on the 26th (doing health care things here is a complicated, very time consuming task), Ivor has a trip to the beach with his class, Chris will be gone for two weeks, packing awaits, paperwork awaits... Arrrrgghhhhh... And yet, we'll live and everything will work out. It always does. :)

See you all mid-July.

Vacation plans

I know it's waaaay early but I couldn't help but start looking into summer vacation plans. I finally found a perfect place that has sand beaches, shallow water that keeps going and going and going, swimming pools with fresh water, accommodations with connected rooms so kids can sleep in a separate room, kitchenette... Place is not too far from Zagreb, mostly highway miles and has proximity to larger, historical cities for sightseeing. PERFECT! Can't wait. Even though there's still snow outside, in my mind I am already lounging on the beach and soaking in the sunshine. I am totally there. I hope this works out. I'll have pictures to share.

Happy Valentine's

Hope everyone had a great, heartwarming Valentine's day. Sending loves and kisses from snow covered Croatia.

Baby talk

A friend of mine had a baby a few days ago. Things went well. Little one is at home. Haven't seen her yet though. It's not as simple here. I talked to her on the phone and she told me that she was sharing a room with 5 other women. That automatically discounts the option of going to visit her. No visitors. I assume no flowers, balloons or cards that I so thoroughly enjoyed when giving birth to my babies at Birmingham's Brookwood hospital. I had my own room and Chris could stay with me and assist me. Had a private bathroom. Had family come into the delivery room minutes after birth. Visitors came and went all day. Had the baby with me whenever I wanted. All of those things were so very important to me. Yes, giving birth hurt more than I could have imagined, but the overall experience was overwhelmingly positive. Wouldn't ever want to give that one up.

If I had to give birth in Croatia I would have. There wouldn't have been a choice and I wouldn't have known any better. If I had to do it now... I would say no way, no how. It makes me sad as I feel that these women are getting cheated out of starting things right with their little ones. As if things weren't going to get hard enough once you get home.

At this particular hospital, my friend says, they sleep from 10pm-6am. That means that babies are bottle fed overnight. And during the day babies are brought over at prescheduled intervals, not necessarily when baby is crying. All that I could think of is poor little wailing babies that want to be held and loved and want to help their mother's milk come in instead of getting a bottle. Lack of privacy, no bonding opportunities and inability for my loved ones to come and visit (other than in the hallway) would have been hardest ones for me to stomach.

On the other hand, this is probably like Ritz-Carlton compared to conditions at some other countries. Still, I can't help but be exceptionally thankful that I was allowed a great childbirth experience. What a shame not every mother can.

Interesting weather in Birmingham

Haven't seen this one before. Same temperature and snowing in both Zagreb and Birmingham. Cool! Enjoy the flurries. We've had to shovel snow three times already. It looks like we might have to again in the morning. Good exercise though.

Setting the mood

It's snowing! It's snowing! Slowly setting the mood for Christmas. :)

Thanksgiving wishes

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We wish we could be there enjoying family time and good food. Today is a regular day for us. Work, school, the usual... But, we'll be secretly thinking of warm pumpkin pie. :)

So, in the spirit of giving thanks... Thanks for reading the blog and thinking of us! We have many things to be thankful for this year and hope that the trend will continue next year as well.