Prof. Erdogru and Pervin discussed that switching our hotel accommodations would be best for our post-op visits. Originally Prof. Erdogru's office had arranged our first four nights in Istanbul at the Memorial Guesthouse, before being admitted to the hospital for surgery. At my consultation, Prof. Erdogru asked for us to get checked into the hospital at 5:00 the night before surgery, for pre-admitting and pre-surgery testing. This meant we would need to ask for a refund for our last night at the Memorial Guest House. Pervin would get this done for us, but we would not receive the full refund, only half, since we would be there for part of the day. Also, to our surprise, we had racked up some additional charges at the hotel. First, 156TL for outgoing phone charges. At home we purchased a phone card with a local Istanbul number. We were using the phone card to call home, but apparently even calling Istanbul numbers is very expensive. That was an expensive lesson to learn, oops! As you can tell, we called home a lot on our first day or two. Next, 32TL for our omelet breakfast we ordered, we somehow had a misunderstanding, we were given instructions that we could order anything from the breakfast menu (for free), but apparently not. Now we know why so much food came on our first morning, our free breakfast was the large platters of cheeses, cucumbers and tomatoes, meats and olives, with tea and rolls, which we ended up sending it all back. So now, instead of receiving a refund we owed additional money. After getting the additional charges figured out for us, Pervin, then told us she would be by on Monday at 3:30pm, to get us to the hospital.
I was super tired, from getting no sleep the two previous night, so I climbed into bed for a three hour nap. After getting some rest, we were hungry. We hadn't had anything to eat since our omelet, so Kris gets the Domino's Pizza ordered. We are now using Skype or Facetime to communicate, although it is not always the easiest to communicate, due to the poor Internet connection from the hospital, we use this because it is free. We were up late in the night again, we spent more time talking to our kids, and I used this time to post on my blog. Kris fell asleep around 4:00 am, and I got to bed by 7:00 am, we both slept until 1:00 pm the next day. This is the most sleep I had gotten in a few days, and I felt better. Sunday would be our only day to go and do a little sight seeing, after sleeping through most of the day, we decide to stay in and take it easy. Traffic in Turkey is like nothing we have ever experienced, instead of trying to find a taxi, and having a stressful drive to the sights, and not being sure what is and isn't open on Sunday's, staying in seemed to be the logical choice. Maybe we will get the chance to go see some sights before we leave, we'll see.
Since I couldn't eat my hot dog and corn pizza from the night before, because I was completely turned off, we are feeling hungry again, and so we decided to go to the hospital cafe once more. I really liked my chicken burrito from last time, so I play it safe, and order it again. Kris went for a hamburger, but it seems it comes with no bun, we have to point to a picture of the chicken sandwich, which does have a bun, to ask for his hamburger to come with the bun. Our server seemed to understand. Kris doubted they would have ketchup for his fries, so we just waited to see. They did it again, everything came out exactly as ordered, including ketchup. We are not doing too badly, considering the huge communication gap. We had a little problem when we went to pay, our server brought back our credit card and shook his head "no". We assumed this meant it didn't go through, but we are not sure why? Holding the credit card machine up for us, and telling us to read the message didn't help. I pull a different card from my wallet, he shakes his head no again. Hmm, what is going on? Kris pulls out his iPad and uses google translate to figure this out. We finally figured out that the credit card machine is down, but, at this point, we had not gotten any Turkish Lira from a bank yet. An idea comes, we ask if they can charge it to our room, and he makes a call and says "yes", whew! problem solved, we can now go.
We had learned, the morning of the day we were leaving for Turkey that our ward was going to have a special prayer and fast in my behalf, (Thank you, Cobble Creek 2nd ward!) so me and my husband chose tonight to start our own prayer and fast. We had a very quiet night, it was the most calmest evening we have had in over a week, we talked with all the kids again, and worked on the blog some more. My blog has been great for filling in extra time, and a great distraction for my upcoming surgery, in giving me something else to focus on. We went to bed by 3:00am, I actually went to bed before the sun came up, finally, I think I am making some progress with the time change. I am surprised when I wake up at 7:30, I decide to get in the shower, and start to gather my things for the stay at the hospital. Kris must have been really tired, because he is still sleeping after everything I did. I worked on my blog, and I finally wake Kris up at 1:00pm. We didn't need to worry about eating since we were fasting, but I needed him to get up and get all of his things together, because we would not be returning to this hotel after today. We had a knock on the door at 2:20pm, it was Pervin, she was already here and she explained we would be leaving by 3:00 instead. Okay, we will be ready, at 2:45 we get another knock on the door, it is Pervin again, she says "come, we must go now," she had a hotel assistant or porter with her to get our bags. We quickly gather our things and go with her. She leads us to the parking garage and has the porter place our bags against the wall. She then leads us up to the cafe to sit down, because our ride is not there yet. I'm not sure why all the urgency, we sat in the cafe for twenty minutes, before heading down to the parking garage for our ride. It was raining outside, and we again, get to travel across the Bosphorus Bridge to the hospital, it is a very beautiful sight in Istanbul.
Once we arrive to the hospital Pervin takes us to patient admissions, they take a copy of our passports and have us sign a couple of forms. The hospital then takes the first half of payment for my operation, 9,500TL or $5,000. Pervin than explains the hospital is getting my room ready and we will wait twenty minutes. She had us go to the lobby and explained someone would be down to get us once the room was ready. She tells us goodbye, and wishes me good luck on my surgery. We stayed in the lobby for just over a hour. We walked back down to patient admissions to see if we were forgotten about, and the girl makes some phone calls. Within five minuets we are shown to our hospital room. The hospital is very nice and very clean. It is about 5:30 pm and I am beyond hungry, we had been fasting, and I hadn't had anything to eat since the chicken burrito from the cafe' the night before.We say a prayer to break our fast, and let the nurses know at the nurses station, we are leaving to get some dinner. They tell us we can get food in the lobby at the hospital across the street, we knew what she was talking about, it is a small cafe in the hospital that serves rolls and breads, and coffee and tea. We were hoping to have some real food tonight, so we tell her thank you, and stick with our plan.
Kris had already decided we were going to go to the Palladium mall to eat, he already checked out the restaurants online and knew there would be some familiar options. We needed to get a taxi to get us over to the mall, I thought since New York taxi's accepted credit cards, that Istanbul would as well, especially since getting around by taxi in Istanbul is so common. We went to the hospitals reception desk and ask her to call us a taxi, we ask if taxi's take credit cads, and she says "no." We then use google translate to explain we do not not have any Turkish Lira, and ask about an ATM, Google translate was not doing a very good job at translating her response, nothing was making sense, she finally gestures to us to follow her. She takes us on the elevator and up to the 2nd floor, same floor as Prof. Erdoghru's waiting room, she then starts to head for the back door of the hospital and right outside the door was an ATM. Yay! We finally have cash to use in Turkey. We go back to the lobby and have the same girl call a taxi for us.
The ride to the mall is very short from the hospital, the mall is enormous, and a very pretty structure. We find the food court and have our dinner. We don't stick around because we knew the hospital needed us back to prepare me for my surgery.
Once getting back to the hospital, the staff gets to work. They have me sign some papers and ask me questions about my past medical history. Someone comes in and does an EKG, a very fast and painless test of the heart. Someone else comes by with a wheel chair, they want me to get in, I try to tell him I am fine, but he is very adamant about me getting in the wheel chair. I give up, it is too hard to explain when neither one of us can communicate with each other. I get in the wheel chair and he takes me to the elevator, and we go down a couple of floors, he had taken me to radiology for a chest x-ray. Also very fast, he then takes me back to my room. We settle in for the night, we talk with our kids and family one last time before the surgery. I work on my blog some more and try to get to sleep around 4:00 am. When I wake up it is only 6:00 am, I turn on the laptop and check in on Facebook, for only just joining a little over a week ago, I am completely addicted.
Considering that I'm about to have surgery in a foreign Country on the other side of the world, I am feeling unbelievably calm. I have no doubts, fears, or anxiety, just a strong sense of relief, that I am finally coming to an end of a very long and painful road. I know I made the right decision. From the time I learned of this surgery in Turkey, everything leading to this day seemed to fall into place effortlessly. It feels this path to Turkey was clearly marked with all the right signs, and it was a very smooth and easy road to follow.
A few minutes before surgery a nurse brought a small cup to me with some liquid medicine. She told me to drink it, it was medicine to make me feel a little sleepy before surgery. My husband warned me, he said, "you know that is going taste so nasty." He was right, it tasted terrible, it made me shiver, and left a bitter taste that I could not get out of my mouth. Soon they were there to get me, and the surgery that I had been waiting for, was only minutes away from starting. I was so excited, and relieved that my countdown to a pain free life, was about to begin...
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