Robin Chartier – Page 64

Tales from a Bahraini hospital

It cracks me up when I’m downloading photos from my phone and find that Camille has left me some surprise selfies. Her faces are the best!

This one about sums up our weekend.

I was looking forward to a relaxing 3 day break — the two older boys were going to a teen retreat all weekend, Josh was heading off to training in the US, and I was planning on lying poolside at the British Club, sipping on Pellegrino with lime, while my independent swimmers played in the pool. (We have reached that glorious milestone — Camille can swim all the way across the pool unassisted.)

I was about to leave for church when Calvin, who had been sick for several days, called for help. I will spare you all of his symptoms, but just say when Mama sees blood, it’s time to head to the hospital. So I dropped everything, left the rest of the kids at home, and took him to the ER.

Thankfully we haven’t had much cause to utilize the hospital services here. We’ve been a few times to visit others, but that’s about it. First of all, the hospital always smells amazing. (That’s not what you thought I was going to say, right?) They have air fresheners going full blast that pump out the scent of night blooming jasmine and it smells calming and sweet. But I guess that’s a matter of perspective. My friend has spent quite a bit of time in the hospital with her kids and her son walked into the lobby, inhaled, and announced, “I can smell all the germs!!” I about died laughing.

Another difference: the ER was totally empty. We walked in on a Friday morning (same as our Sunday morning) and they had Calvin in a room quicker than I could hand over my military ID. When the system works on cash for treatment and ER prices are $53 to see the doctor (up to $106 to see the specialist) people take care of non-emergent needs for less at their local clinics or at the free public hospital.

The reason we chose this hospital is because they are familiar with military patients and they take care of calling our insurance company and getting all the approvals for treatment. All I have to do is sign the paperwork. Done.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

The doc came in (Calvin judged that he was Palestinian based on his features, accent and mannerisms — interesting details that you pick up living over here). He was a bit of a scary grandpa type — looking down his nose at us over his glasses. He got a bit fixated on Calvin’s previous gallbladder surgery (something that I was afraid would happen) and was aghast that a 5 year old would have had his gallbladder removed. “Why?! What was the reason for his gallstones?! Didn’t they bother to find out? It could have been related to a blood disease!” with a disapproving shake of his head. OK buddy, I’ll let the specialist at Loma Linda hospital know that you, a doctor who has spent 30 seconds with my son, is second guessing the surgery that he performed 12 years ago that ended his stomach pain permanently. Whatever. Let’s move on.

Anyway, it was much better when the gastroenterologist showed up. Much warmer and more relaxed. Interesting that so many of the doctors here are Indian (and most of the nurses are Filipino or Indian), but all three of Calvin’s doctors were of Arab descent, including a pink hijabed woman. Once we left scary grandpa behind, our experiences with the doctors were much improved.

Another big difference at the hospital here. They did some bloodwork and ran other tests and said that they would have the results back in about an hour. In the meantime, they would give him some painkillers. I was a little concerned because I was thinking about painkillers in the American way — nope, in Bahrain painkillers = Tylenol. No joke. So he got his Tylenol IV and then some salt solution IVs and then they said based on the blood tests, they were calling the gastroenterologist, but since he was coming from home it might take a while. Yep, I’ve done this before. 3 hours waiting for the specialist to arrive.

But not here. A guy in running shoes and a t-shirt walked in less than 10 minutes later, checked him over and based on the type of bacteria, his symptoms, and his general fatigued appearance decided to admit him overnight. As he left, Calvin whispered to me, “he must live really close by!” Either that or he’s related to the Incredible family and his gift is super speed.

They moved him upstairs and we settled in. Calvin was already perkier and chirpier from his IVs. Or maybe it was the Tylenol. I was starving because I never ate breakfast and had been at the hospital all day. I tried to buy something from the coffee shop on site, but they didn’t have change and didn’t take cards. It’s a huge problem in this country. The ATMs spit out 20s, but God forbid you try to use one anywhere but the grocery store or the gas station. When they brought Calvin a late lunch around 4:00 I pretty much ate the entire thing. He was supposed to be on a bland diet, but no one had told the meal people that. Salad with honey mustard dressing, grilled chicken, creamy chicken soup, steamed vegetables — yum for me. Calvin still wasn’t eating so no harm, no foul.

Josh came by after work for a few minutes, (he went from church to work, then home to pick something up, downtown to drop it off, to the hospital, back to work, home to get the kids to go feed them dinner, then home to pack and off to the airport. His day was crazier than ours!) and laughed as he saw me licking the bottom of the soup bowl. (because I was starving)

My baby spending the night solo in the hospital. Once he figured out how to unplug his IV unit from the wall to roll his way to the bathroom he was fine.

The rest of our time in the hospital was spent trying to get wifi or 3G signal (the dumb cement block structures are excellent signal blockers), watching animal attack shows on National Geographic Wild, getting blood drawn and IVs hooked up and emptied, taking antibiotic and other medication and killing time. They came around the next morning and took his food order for the entire day and I thought “Um, I think we’re going home today, no need to order food.” NOPE! Visible signs of blood equals a longer stay and at least one more night in the hospital.

At that point a friend messaged me and said she was going to come and get the two younger kids and take them to her house overnight (Carter was off on the retreat) so that I didn’t have to worry if Caleb and Camille were getting along OK at home alone and so I didn’t have to drive back and forth all afternoon and evening. Bless her.

And she sent me photos to show me how much fun they all were having together. Bless her even more.

brothers and sisters — so sweet!

All that was left for me to do was to pester Calvin about drinking the “cloudy water” that they had given him (some sort of rehydration solution) and to encourage him to eat as much as possible.

This was us — Big Bang Theory, lots of wild animals, Shrek 2, plenty of Ellen, and some Jimmy Fallon. Good times.

Another darling friend came by and brought Calvin puzzles and mind games to occupy his time (and snacks for me!) for those hours that we were tired of TV.

And I found out a friend’s son was in the hospital at the same time with similar symptoms so he came and visited a few times. IV buddies.

Sunday was a holiday so it was nice that Calvin wasn’t missing school, BUT it meant the hospital was running on holiday hours. Drs rounds weren’t until noon and then it took forever for the nurses to bring the discharge information. There wasn’t even paperwork to sign — just a bottle of tylenol (Bahrain runs on Tylenol, lol), some rehydration powder and antibiotics. And then we busted out of there like our hair was on fire — peace OUT!

All Hail the Queen

Did you know the Queen of England turned 90 this past weekend? The British Club celebrated with all things English over the two days to pay tribute to Her Majesty and young Prince George.

Pimms was the drink of the day — it tastes like fruity lemonade. Camille liked eating the apple and orange pieces out of it after I was finished.

They had games and activities for the kids — like this mechanical bull. Not British, yet fun.

Except for the part where the bull is covered in burlap and the boys have been suffering with road rash on their legs all week. God forbid they let go when they start to fall off!

In America you’d probably have an adult supervising this waterslide. With no liability issues to worry about, kids were taking the ladder Lord of the Flies style. Every now and then someone would come by and refill the bottom splash zone. Camille decided quickly that this was not her scene. Too much chaos and screaming.

I don’t know what coconuts have to do with England — as Josh said, maybe celebrating British Imperialism? But they had a carnival type game where you could throw weighted balls at coconuts mounted on posts and if you knocked one off, you could keep it.

That $1.25 provided an afternoon’s worth of entertainment and snacks.

Carter dared to get inside the plastic ball

which they inflated

and then he “ran” around the pool like a hamster in a wheel.

Two days of fun and food: bangers and mash, steak pie, and scones with jam and clotted cream. So happy we could have a spot of tea in honor of the monarchy.

99%

I wrote a big old long post yesterday and then when I went to publish it, it disappeared. Grrrr. I thought it was a good one too. I don’t have it in me to recreate it today because I’ve been busy getting all the last bits of paperwork for our move together.

We all have to undergo overseas medical screening again. Yes, even though we are already overseas. Everyone has to be assessed medically and cleared by dental and the kids need documentation that they don’t receive any kind of special education services. It’s so many papers that Josh created separate file folder for each of us and I have one of those portable briefcase file holders so I look super prepared as I haul a tree’s worth of white stuff around with me.

But I’m almost finished. Kids have seen the doctor, the dentist and I just picked up the school waivers today. Passport photos have been taken so we can apply for UAE residence visas (I don’t know why they need photos, but they do).

And since other countries in the world aren’t allowed to smile for their passport photos, the photographer always insists that we can’t smile so we end up with mug shots.

A gorgeous “old” door next to the passport photo place (a reproduction of the old style carved doors from this region of the world.)

And a photo of my crew who have ALL BEEN ADMITTED to school in Abu Dhabi for the 2016-17 school year. Happy day, they offered spaces to all of them.

Medical, check

Dental, check

School applications, check

Passport visas, pending

overseas screening, pending

housing assignment, pending

I’ve done all I can do and now I’m just waiting on the results. That’s our life these days. A whole lot of red tape to dig through and waiting for the next steps.

Future targets: Household goods shipments and pet paperwork. To be continued . . .

praying for grass

When Caleb heard we were moving to UAE he cried because he wanted “to go somewhere with grass.” The kid really does need vegetation of some kind. All he wants to do is climb trees and run and try to make fire using only two sticks. There are a few compounds here with gorgeous grass lawns and space to run, but they are all out of our price range. Ironically, active duty military get less housing allowance than civilian contractors, Department of Defense teachers, and other government employees. And we don’t get an increased amount per kid like they do either. We get the same as a couple with no kids looking for a place to live — my posts from July of 2012 cover all of my house hunting woes.

Anyway, we have been greatly blessed by our Bahrain house, and it’s a miracle that we found something so great with what we had to work with, but my kids are all missing base housing life with lots of neighbor kids and a built in community of friends. The best time here was when we had neighbor friends across the street and the kids could run back and forth between our houses like one big happy family. I know they are hoping for something like that when we move to UAE. The best part about moving to Abu Dhabi is that we will be assigned a place to live. That might seem like a drawback to some, but for us it means being assigned embassy housing, whose standards are way above military housing. And not having to look for a house and decide which area of town to live in takes all the stress off of me. I can make anything work — just tell me where to show up.

We turned in a housing survey where they asked us to rank our preferences (near the beach, near work, accommodations for live-in house help, pets allowed, etc) and we said our top priority would be for a yard/green space for the kids/pets in a compound with other families. We’ve always put location above amenities, but I think we’re all starving for some outdoor living. If we’re assigned a high rise in the middle of downtown, we’ll make the best of it. I know that God will provide for all of our needs and I’m completely at peace about where we’ll end up, but I’m also hoping for that patch of grass so my kids can have the desires of their heart. (until they figure out they have to mow it!)

Edited to add: Blogging from a pool lounger. With this beautiful view.

My fish is swimming!

The big boys are going indoor skydiving today so Caleb, Camille and I went to breakfast at the British Club. They usually order a full English breakfast with coffee, juice, beans, mushrooms, sausage, bacon, black pudding (blood sausage), toast and marmalade, two fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, and fried bread to share between the two of them. They eat all of it except the black pudding (which is actually pretty good), but I always make them take at least one bite each time, just in case their tastes change over time.

Caleb loves coffee. No sugar, just cream.

And they spent the rest of the morning diving for plastic fish and torpedoes.

She’s got the hang of it — diving for toys at the bottom of the pool!

Round 4

There are certain things that I don’t love about raising kids: getting them to sleep through the night, potty training, and separation anxiety that lasts through preschool have probably been the source of 90% of our parenting headaches. Another one that is up near the top of that list is teaching our kids to swim. You would think since both Josh and I were certified lifeguards and swim instructors when we were in college that we’d have a head start on the process, but teaching our kids was like trying to give a cat a bath.

The closer we’d get to the water, the tighter their arms would cinch around my neck. Even with a life jacket on, Calvin would climb my body like a monkey scaling a tree to keep his head way above water level. Attempts to turn the task over to someone else weren’t much more successful. I was that mom at the pool that vacillated between anger and embarrassment as my kid screamed on the edge of the pool as the other kids happily bobbed up and down.

We’ve been a family of 5 swimmers for a while now, thankfully, and most of the swimming lesson nightmares have been buried beneath the fog that covers my brain’s historical record, but we haven’t attempted swimming lessons with Camille since that summer that I tried for 2 terrible days when she was 3 and then decided I was never doing that again. Ever.

^Big Mistake^

Camille learned to swim last summer, kind of. She can do front crawl arms and stop to come up for breath and do an underwater breast stroke, but since we want her to actually be a strong swimmer, we decided to try swimming lessons one more time, hoping that time had healed old wounds and left old phobias behind.

20 minutes before swimming lessons, the tears began.

On the lounge chair, poolside. (And yes, we were having a freakishly cold beginning of April so it was cold enough for a sweatshirt.) I kept talking it up and showing her what the kids were doing in the previous class that was taking place in front of us, pointing out that she could already do everything they were doing. I wasn’t having much luck until I started telling her horror stories about her brothers and how they were terrible swimming lesson participants.

How I had to bribe Calvin with a GI Joe doll just to get him to go in the pool and then he still cried whenever the teacher talked to him. And how he made me look like the most terrible mom ever when I forced him to jump off the diving board along with the rest of the class and his response was to play dead out of spite, floating on the top of the water, refusing to come up for air until the teacher fished him out and everyone hovered around him asking if he was OK. That got her laughing through her tears.

The class started and I walked her over to the group of waiting level 2 girls. She was nervous, but the laughing had done the trick. I promised her hot chocolate after class was over and she was off. There was one little girl clinging to her mom’s leg, sobbing and I was SO THANKFUL that it wasn’t me for a change.