15 December 2012

And we are back

We spent 5 nights and 6 days in Thessaloniki, we arrived on Sunday and Nik had his operation on Monday, it went fairly quickly.  This will have to be his last surgery the doctor's say that they can not do any more, his colon will have to remain the way it is, if he has constipation issues they will be dealt with the way everyone else does (i.e. enemas, cod liver oil, etc.).
I think Nik behaved fairly well and it really helped that we had the computer with us and he was able to watch Cartoons while on bed rest.  Katerina is a true nurse and gave her brother many hugs and kisses and helped push his drip system around when he went on walks.  She actually wanted to give all of the babies "huggies" and I had to point out that they had daadaas (greek baby word for ouwies(sp?)  It was also very helpful that the hospital had a small school the kids could attend in the morning hours from 9-12, the teacher's were very nice and had projects for the kids to do, Nik excelled at painting and Katerina at taking care of the animals and cutting paper.
Kat did not want to be separated from me at any time, and the 2 times that I sneaked away with out her looking she ended up throwing huge fits and the last one she threw up all over the hospital room.  I am so glad that this time Nik was a little older and he let me go out, on the visits before he was the one who wouldn't let me out of his sight.
Things have not changed much in the almost 5 years that we were in the hospital, the doctors still do the majority of scheduled surgeries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  They make 2 group rounds 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening, the parents are sent out of the room while the doctors visit the patients, most kids cry because they are afraid of the mass amount of blue and white coats in the room.  Even the roads have not changed much, just a few blocks from the Hospital they still have part of a road blockaded and it was that way 5 years ago also, I think it is supposed to be a future entrance to the underground metro system that they are slowly, very slowly making in Thessaloniki.  P.S. if you don't know, in Greece, when they say something is going to be completed multiply that # by 10, so if they say 5 years expect it to be more like 50.
Some things have changed there were a lot more Albanians in the hospital this time around and they decreased the amount of rooms used (-3) so our room was full a lot of the time and they even had girls in our room, that has never been the case before.  A lot of shops in Thessaloniki are closed and you can see rental signs everywhere, even the McDonalds closed that was next to IKEA (so bummed about that).  Hotel prices are cheaper, the room that we rented about 4 years ago was half price, so if you are looking for a good travel deal you can probably find it.  And one other change that I kind of like and wish we had was that the parents look after the infants in this wing of the hospital.  When Nik was an infant the nurses looked after him and we were only allowed to visit twice a day, that was super hard, now the parents and infants stay together there are 3 infant beds and a few rented lounge chairs in the room.  I feel that this arrangement is better for both child and parent, because before the babies are just left alone except for when a nurse goes in to feed and change the baby otherwise it could be very lonely for the little infant.
Okay that's enough about that, we are just so happy to say that Nik should be fairly healthy now and he will go back to school after Christmas and hopefully like school better.

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