just to be sure

Teoman had a bad night of sleep last night.  His pain is very stressful for us as parents.  He didn’t want to get up in the morning, but I pushed him because I needed him to eat and take his medicine.  I had to carry Teoman down stairs and he laid on the chair swing letting his Babaanne feed him.  By 10am, Tolga had arranged by phone a call to the doctor, a place to get an ultrasound, and our cousin to pick us up and take us there.

Anne told me Hakan could take us because he had said “If there is anything, even small, call me and I will help.”  Maybe I’m the dramatic one for believing him.  Or maybe, helping was connecting us to a doctor he knows.  It didn’t really matter in the end - our cousin, Gokalp abi, came and brought us to the hospital.  Gokalp abi is about 65 years old and lives in Istanbul.  He vacationed here without his wife and has been rotating between our house and our uncle’s house on the beach.  As at true Turk, he cried when he heard of Teoman’s surgery and he was happy to jump in and help.  

We decided to take off his bandages before we left.  We were supposed to take them off yesterday - and the plan was for him to take a shower and do it then - but he had gotten too tired and asked to do it today.  And now today came and he wasn't feeling up for much of anything.  I had to be a bit hard with him, and I said it’s either me or the doctor.  He was afraid of the pain, and I know that feeling.  I put him in the shower to wash and soften the bandages, and with the first real pull he smiled and said, “That didn’t hurt!”  Actually, I knew it did - at the tips and near the surgery spots - but not as much as he imagined, so he was pretty pleased.  

We went to the semi-private hospital - which means, it gives government insurance discounts or you can use your own private insurance.  Either way - all the hospitals in Kusadasi are depressing.  Especially the ERs - people are coming in afraid and injured.  The doctors and nurses are overworked, the injured are waiting, and the stress and fear levels are tangible.  Private hospitals are a little bit better, but not much - here you see the sunburnt vacationers trickling in - falling down stairs, something dropped on a foot, dehydrated, Turkish tummy, and so on.  

We went up for the doctor, went down for the ultrasound, back up for an emergency request from the doctor, back down and waiting for Teoman to have the urge to pee - and then they did the ultrasound.  Asking a 5 year old boy to hold his pee is torture.  The doctor saw a few things, but she identified everything as normal - and we went back to the pediatrician to confirm it.  Just gas.   According to my friend and nurse whom I text constantly with medical questions, they put a lot of air in the belly during surgery, and it’s a painful recovery.  We were relieved to hear to was nothing serious.