Thursday, October 05, 2006

The adventure continues...

Wow, what a day. Today we had school as usual, learned some new stuff. Then went home and had lunch-deep fried prawns-yummy! After lunch Hugo brought me to the grocery store so I could do groceries. So I did my groceries and this time had to hail my own cab as the parking lot guys were very busy directing cars in the parking lot, it was a bit zoo-like. On the way home I picked up the kids at school. When I arrived home I saw that Brynne had a very swollen cheek, swollen hand and foot. That morning she had also woken up with a rash on her body that was hot to the touch. I immediately gave her Benadryl but noticed that nothing changed. We were supposed to go out with David and Santi tonight, but I sms’ed them that we would have to cancel. They offered to take Brynne and I to the doctor. So I accepted. David is very fluent in English and knows his way around Bandung very well. So we first went to a hospital, different than the one I went to before, to see if the pediatrician was in. He was already gone. But, they said, there’s another children’s doctor on the second floor and he’s good. So we went up. We didn’t have to wait at all, which should have given us a clue… We were ushered into his office by a nurse. The fact that he was very obviously not busy should have been clue number two. He looked at Brynne with his milky eyes and listened to her heart and breathing with his deaf ears and agreed with us that she had chicken pox and a slight fever. He used a flashlight to look at some of her scabs. He didn’t answer any of our questions but was very happy to talk about his wife who is from Yugoslavia and his daughter who is very beautiful and is a doctor there. We paid our 65,000 visit fee and threw out the prescription he wrote. David and Santi figure that he has been put in the hospital by the government and that he probably doesn’t actually do much work. Then we went to the office of the first doctor that we missed. Well, we missed him again, he had already moved to his third practice. So we drove again, by now we were in South Bandung and not by using the toll roads. We arrived in one piece at this third practice. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait very long at all. Maybe because I am a buleh, because there were other people waiting. Dr. Kelly is supposed to be one of the best pediatricians in Bandung. Not that this means anything, but he has an extra thumb growing out of the thumb on his left hand. He looked at Brynne and asked me how long she had “chicken pox” and if she’d had a fever at all. He told me right away that he thought it wasn’t chicken pox and that he wanted to do a blood test. So Brynnie gave some blood and we waited. After about only 10 minutes the results were in. Brynne has a bacterial skin infection. He prescribed four different things for her. An anti-biotic, which we had with us from Canada, a cream for her open sores, a cream for her red bum, and some anti-histamine/anti-itch drops. Wow, I’m extremely thankful that I decided to take David and Santi up on their offer and I’m extremely thankful for their persistence in finding a good doctor. We do need to return in four/five days though… That might be another adventure…
BTW we are still pretty much without water, just a tiny bit for dishes and sponge baths...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi kids and grandkids! Wow that was quite the day for you all yesterday. How was Brynne during all this time. It must have taking you quite some time to finally get home again. Interesting bussiness anyway. Hugo was probably wondering what had happened. Great to have friends who are ready and willing to help. How is Brynne now? Hope she feels better soon. Ofcourse with having the chicken pox your body is robbed of antibodies than its easy to pick up other "issues". The immune system has to build up again. All in all you are having quite the adventures , school still going good you must be almost finished with the first unit? Have a great weekend , relax a bit if you can. God bless, miss you all , love you lots. Give the kids a big hug from us. mom

nicolevw said...

Hi Hugo and Erica,

We're hoping that Brynne will be doing better quickly! That must have been a bit scary too ...being in unfamiliar territory in an unfamiliar land! I hope the pediatrician was right ....keep us posted as to Brynne's health.
Take care and hope your water situation gets better too!
Nicole