It is 11:15am here in Athens, Greece on Saturday. \u00c2\u00a0We are seven hours ahead of U.S. Eastern DST. \u00c2\u00a0Our two week European cruise vacation has been sidelined and extended due to an illness and a series of ship infirmaries, clinics, ambulances, flights, ambulances, and finally a proper hospital here in Athens. \u00c2\u00a0Poor Gwen had what started as a backache when our flight landed in Rome two weeks ago today and then progressed in to full blown medical emergency.<\/p>\n
In Rome, we thought it was just back pain from the odyssey of two long flights, luggage and airline mishaps, and a day that had started 24 hours before we landed. \u00c2\u00a0We boarded the Celebrity Reflection a day and a half later thinking that she was just suffering from jetlag as she had no symptoms of illness, and certainly nothing that would indicate that her gall bladder was done with her. \u00c2\u00a0By the second day on the ship, sailing to the island of Santorini, she was feeling fine and we thought that all was well. \u00c2\u00a0All was not well.<\/p>\n
The third night, she started getting sick again and we knew then that things were not normal. \u00c2\u00a0We went down to the ship\u2019s infirmary and the very nice doctor diagnosed her with heartburn (acid) and sent her back to the room with generic Prevacid. \u00c2\u00a0The following day, things were worse and she was able to see the senior doctor on the ship. \u00c2\u00a0He felt her abdomen for two seconds and declared pretty quickly that he felt it was her gall bladder. \u00c2\u00a0He said that we should go to a clinic at the next port and get an ultrasound.<\/p>\n
The next day, we docked in Istanbul and a car took us the two blocks from the port to a ship-affiliated clinic. \u00c2\u00a0She recieved an ultrasound that confirmed that her gall bladder was inflamed. \u00c2\u00a0This was a relief as we now had a good diagnosis. \u00c2\u00a0The doctors at the clinic said that the even better news is that we could continue on with our vacation and wait until we got to the U.S. to have any surgery or more medical intervention. \u00c2\u00a0They gave her some really good antibiotics as well as some painkillers and we boarded the ship again.<\/p>\n
We had one more day in Istanbul and Gwen was feeling fine. \u00c2\u00a0We went on a tour of the Boshphos straight and of part of old Istanbul as well as the famed Spice Market. \u00c2\u00a0We thought the worst of the symptoms were behind and were able to enjoy almost two full days of our long awaited and hard-worked-for vacation.<\/p>\n
Alas, all was still not well. \u00c2\u00a0The next morning, we docked at Esphus, which is in another part of Turkey. \u00c2\u00a0Gwen wasn\u2019t feeling well but I went out on the excursion, hoping to grab her off the ship in the afternoon for some adventures. \u00c2\u00a0By the time I got back to the ship, though, she was in enough pain and discomfort that it merited another trip downstairs to the infirmary. \u00c2\u00a0They had gotten to know us pretty well at this point and the nurses and doctors took good care of her. \u00c2\u00a0Finally, they decided that it was time to say goodbye to us, get Gwen off the ship and to a real doctor. \u00c2\u00a0This was not as simple as it sounded and the ship had since left Esphus.<\/p>\n
The initial plan was to keep her on the ship for two days, until the boat docked at Athens. \u00c2\u00a0As the hours ticked by, though, the doctors on the ship decided that she had to go to Athens \u2018now\u2019 and said that they would be transferring us off when we docked at the Island of Mykonos (Greece) on Monday morning. \u00c2\u00a0They would have us go to a clinic, which would then take over her care and start to make all the decisions. \u00c2\u00a0This is exactly what happened an in a flurry of packing (we had two weeks of luggage and contents all over our stateroom after a week!) and other hasty arrangement, Gwen and I left the cruise after seven days and she was taken by rural ambulance to the clinic in Mykonos. \u00c2\u00a0This was the farthest thing from a hospital imaginable, but the doctor there was very nice, took care of her, and determined that we had best get on a plane to Athens STAT. \u00c2\u00a0They assisted us in booking tickets for the commuter flight that afternoon and took us by ambulance over to the airport. \u00c2\u00a0Poor Gwen was not in good condition at this point but they had enough painkillers in her to make her able to get on a plane.<\/p>\n
The short flight (35-40mins) to Athens was a bit bumpy but uneventful. \u00c2\u00a0When we landed they had an ambulance waiting on the tarmac and it took her directly to the Hygeia hospital in a northeastern suburb of Athens. \u00c2\u00a0The check-in process took a while as I speak no Greek and though many people spoke some English, wading through the hosptial-check-in-beurocracy process in any language can be difficult. \u00c2\u00a0The doctor saw her right away and said that her gall bladder would be surgically removed the next morning once they had her stable enough. \u00c2\u00a0They then performed another ultrasound and gave her IV meds overnight.<\/p>\n
The next morning (Tuesday at this point) we me the other surgeon, who had cut his own vacation short for this case. \u00c2\u00a0He was very nice, professional, and had supposedly done 2,000 of these surgeries. \u00c2\u00a0Gwen\u2019s parents stopped by, as they had been on the ship as well and it had just docked at Athens so they took a cab, an they got to say hello to a pretty delirious Gwen just before she was wheeled in to surgery. \u00c2\u00a0The procedure was supposed to take 1-1.5 hours, but she ended up being in the operating room for over two and a half hours. \u00c2\u00a0Afterwards, the surgeons came out and told us that 1.) the surgery was successful and 2.) it was one of the most complicated and worst one of these they have ever had to perform. \u00c2\u00a0After he sat us down he explained that her gall bladder had gone gangrenous and was about to burst. \u00c2\u00a0He said that if it had burst (perforated) on the ship than she could had died, and that it should have been removed surgically many days ago. \u00c2\u00a0After he took the gall bladder out, he dissected it quickly and found not only that it had been gangrenous and infected, but that the inner wall had actually sloughed away and there were nine (NINE) stones in it. \u00c2\u00a0He then showed us pictures of everything. \u00c2\u00a0Trust me, you do not want to see these pictures. \u00c2\u00a0What amazed us is that there were absolutely NO signs of this before we set sail! \u00c2\u00a0She was completely asymptomatic until, well, it was an emergency.<\/p>\n