Surgery and Recovery

Everyone,

I had my surgery a week ago Monday and everything seemed to go just fine. Afterward, I stayed for three days at my teacher’s apartment where he and his wife took really good care of me. All I did—literally—was lie there and sleep all day and all night. I eventually started reading to try to make better use of my time. It was nice though because I didn’t hurt at all, so I thought I was in for a smooth recovery. I even went to a church dance activity on Friday night. I took it easy there, but I still really enjoyed it.

Then Saturday, I started to feel some pretty severe pain come on. It continued through Sunday, so I had to stand through all my meetings, which wasn’t too nice. I lost a little sleep Sunday night due to pain, then Monday it was even worse. A nurse was supposed to come to my apartment between 2 and 4pm that afternoon to look at it and make sure everything was ok. I had gone out for lunch and come back to my apartment about 2:10, when my teacher called me and let me know that the nurse had already come and gone, but would come the next day. This was terrible news, as I didn’t want to have to deal with increasing pain for another 24 hours—I didn’t know if I could do it. Well, I did make it through to the next day and, after going to a religion class and having to drop out of a walking tour of Berlin due to pain, I was home just before 2, when the nurse was supposed to come. He came at about 2:15 and was not at all what I was expecting. He was probably about 24 and brought NOTHING with him—no supplies of any kind, except a pair of surgical gloves that he was carrying in his bare hand. When he got here, he asked me where my gauze and tape were. Thankfully I had just bought some at the pharmacy a few days before. I was fully planning on asking him to leave me with more so I could have it just in case. I was shocked. He looked at my sore and kept saying things like “oh, this is very bad”. I asked him if it looks to be infected again and he said “yes”. Then I asked if I’ll have to go back to the hospital, to which he replied “yes” again. I was nearly in tears. The last thing I wanted was for this to get drawn out any longer than it needed to be. The son of the lady I live with then came home and translated his conversation with the nurse for me. Apparently the nurse told him that I didn’t have an infection and that I wouldn’t have to go to the doctor. This naturally confused me. So, I got a recommendation for a doctor and saw him that night. This doctor is a surgery specialist and he said that everything looks good—no sign of infection and the healing is going fine. I felt great about this. And this doctor was so nice. Now I go to his office, which isn’t very far from my house, every morning and he looks at my wound and makes sure it’s healing ok. Plus he changed my bandages out for me, which is nice not to have to do by myself anymore.

So I think things are looking good. I got a fantastic blessing last night from my teacher and a friend in the program here and that made me feel a lot better. Today when I saw the doctor, he said everything looks excellent and that the pain will get less and less everyday. This was fantastic news. I’m ready to be done with this whole thing and I think I’m finally getting to that point.

Other than my sore slowing me down, Berlin is a wonderful place. I’m really looking forward to being at 100% so I can see and do as much as I can.