Korle Bu revisited. And revisited again.

The other day, I was talking to Eric, Sly’s best friend, who called to see how Mike was doing. The first words out of his mouth were, “Man, and I thought Mike was Superman.” You know, we all did. But apparently, Mike’s kryptonite is a little thing called grass. Well, that’s my opinion anyway. Let me begin the story.

On Monday, May 18th, I went to the kids’ school to pick up Alex. Mike saw me and came running over (to get more money, as usual). He was covered in grass clippings, and explained that the PE teacher had assigned him and some other kids to help rake up the football pitch. He begged me to take him home, even though he still had another 2 hours of school. I wonder now if I had taken him home, if it might have prevented what happened later. Anyway, I didn’t take him home just then, and he kept on picking up grass. Later when he got home, he had a shower and showed me how there were even clipping inside his high top sneakers.

Friday

Fast forward to Friday, May 22nd. The kids don’t have school, and Mike wakes up a bit later than normal but comes out complaining about the mosquitoes in his room, and that “daddy” should spray when he comes home from work. Sure enough, he’s got about half a dozen bites on his back. Or so I thought. A few hours later, I see him squirming in the chair, and the bites have now spread over his back and around to his stomach. Obviously, they’re not bites; it’s a rash of some sort. I tell him to take another shower and give him a Benadryl. The rash gets worse as the day progresses.

Saturday

Saturday comes early, because at 5:00 a.m. Sly is waking me up because Mike’s rash is worse – its up into his neck and face and spreading down his legs and arms – and his hands and wrists are swollen. We decide to take him to our family doctor and head out. Mike’s not his usual jovial self, just sitting quietly in the car. We find we’ve arrived to the doctor’s office too early and we have to go sit somewhere to kill time.

Time killed, we’re back at the doctor’s office and are now second in line to see the doc. But, guess what? This is Ghana, and even doctors run on Ghana time. The office is supposed to open at 10:00 a.m. The doctor finally arrives around 11ish. When we finally go in, it’s a new doctor that we’ve never seen before. He has Mike sit in the chair next to him and without even touching him, or listening to his heart, or asking him to even remove his freaking shirt, the doctor declares: “It’s an allergy.” Let me tell you, it took all of my resolve not to yell out, “No shit.” At that point, Sly comes in to the room and the doctor quickly whips out his stethoscope to listen to Mike’s heart beat. Big deal.

Still declaring the allergy, he briefly interrogates us for new food that could be causing it but really, Mike hasn’t eaten anything different, with the exception of these little coffee creamers that I recently bought (you know, like the kind you get in restaurants with your coffee). He loves these things, and drank one on Wednesday and another on Thursday. He would probably have had more, but they cost me a fortune and I wouldn’t let him. Anyway, doc says he’ll put Mike on something called tab cetrizine and “personally” give him a hydrocortisone shot. Then we’re summarily dismissed. Oh, the doc did mention that if we didn’t see improvement, that we might want to come back on Monday to see the regular doctor. That left us with a warm and fuzzy. NOT.

Twenty minutes pass before we give up on the “personal” touch and beg a nurse to give Mike the injection. Then home we go.

Sunday

Sunday morning is another early day. Mike wakes up Sly because now his face is all swollen (really he looked like Marlon Brando in the Godfather!), his hands and wrists are still swollen, and the rash is red and itchy and spreading to the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. With a call in to Dr. Renner (Alex’s pediatrician) we’re off to Korle Bu emergency ward.

The stuff that you have got to go through to be seen at Korle Bu is mind boggling. Fortunately, the call to Dr. Renner paved the way, and she gave us the names of the doctors to ask for. Even more fortunate, I spotted one of the residents who is training in endocrinology and she guided us through the maze.

First, you have to buy a folder from the folder man. Cost GHC 3.
Second, you bring the folder to the folder desk, where a woman completes a history and contact information sheet.
Third, you see a nurse who takes your temperature and logs in your weight. Cost 10 pesawas.

Finally, you track down a doctor. We got lucky because Sly was regaling some of the residents with the story of the lazy/apathetic/couldn’t-be-bothered doctor we’d seen the day before, so that set the stage for a very thorough examination.

The diagnosis remained the same: Allergy to “something.” But the treatment was admission, with regular hydrocortisone injections and a drip (because Mike wasn’t eating – surprise surprise!), and continuation of the cetrizine (which I discovered is – ta da! – Zyrtec).

Mike is so not a happy camper. He’s weak, his legs can hardly hold him, his face is fatter and puffier than normal and his rash is itching like crazy. We take him up to the ward and we get our “favorite” room: The Amenity Ward.

The Amenity Ward looks just the same, except for one major improvement: the addition of a television! Yippee! Give Mike a TV and a couple of 40-year old cartoons and he’s as happy as a pig in doo doo. Who cares if he’s got a needle stuck in his arm? “Get out of the way! Tom and Jerry’s on!”

So Mike is on a drip, getting hydrocortisone injections every 6 hours and they’ve given him an injection of adrenaline to counteract the rash. Fun, right?

Now we had not prepared for an overnight stay, and there was no way we could go home and bring stuff back, so we had to make do with what we had. Sly and Sean stayed and kept him company and Alex and I drove back home.

Sly had to do a lot of running around. As I’ve said in my older Korle Bu blogs, the parent is the nurse, and the dietician and the janitor. So Sly had to go up and down the 66 steps at least 5 or 6 times, until Mike was settled in for the night. On the list of stuff to buy: Bowls, spoons, washcloth, toothbrushes, toothpaste, water, juice, snacks, phone cards, etc. By the time Mike was settled in for the night, I bet Sly was ready to fall out from exhaustion.

Monday

Mike’s been off the drip, but continued to get the hydrocortisone shots through the port, and he is feeling better. They are all anxious to go home, and the doctors give the approval, since the rash seems to be subsiding and the swelling has diminished. They give us a prescription for Prednisone to continue at home. At about 4:00 p.m. we’re signed out and ready. But there’s a catch. They don’t have the bill that we have to pay before we’re permitted to leave. And, oh, the billing office is closed. Sly, of course, doesn’t stand for that kind of crap, so he calls Dr. Renner and tells her we’re all leaving and he’ll be back the next day to settle up the bill. The nurse warns Sly that the guards might prevent us from going, and he shoots her a “what are you, stupid?” look. We leave. Unaccosted. We’re home by 8:00 p.m. and hit the hay, all of us exhausted.

Tuesday

Mike isn’t any better. The swelling is back in full force. He can hardly see through his eyes, they’re so puffy and slitted. We drop the kids off at school, Sly off at work and Mike and I head back to the hospital. We call Dr. Renner (who is, by the way, supposed to be on holiday) and she says she’ll alert the ward that we’re on our way back.

Yup, you guessed right. We’re readmitted, and Mike is put back on the hydrocortisone injection and they double his Zyrtec and once he complained of tightness in his throat, but I gave him a puff on my inhaler and that helped immediately. Over the course of the day, he slowly got better, but we still had to stay overnight.

Again, we didn’t plan for an overnight. I had on a long linen dress – not the most comfortable thing to sleep in, believe me. And we had to buy more bowls, more washcloths, more toothbrushes and toothpaste. And this time Mommy had to go prowling through the neighborhood for sardines and kenkey and waakye. I’m sure that was a funny sight – the tall obroni in the heavily wrinkled dress standing in the waakye line.

Wednesday

We’re released. Mike looks better, the rash has stopped spreading and the swelling is no worse than it was the day before. No better either, but no worse. Sly is declaring that the bill better be ready before we go and that we’re leaving at 1:00 p.m. sharp. Well, that spurs them into action, a little bit, but by 1:30 we’re still empty handed. The woman in the other bed with her infant son tells us that another patient who was discharged waited nearly 8 hours for her bill, then went to the billing office, dashed the clerk something and she had the bill within the hour. Sly does not dash. Sly gets angry. Then Sly leaves.

And that’s what we did. We left the building without paying and went home.

Here it is Friday and Mike is still home with us. I’ve gotten on the internet to do my own investigation and I learn that Benadryl is better than Zyrtec, because it works faster and is more “powerful” so we’ve been giving that to Mike instead and it’s helped a lot. We decided to give him the Prednisone last night before bed, and that kept the swelling at bay.

Now, there are a couple of complaints about joint pain in his shoulder and legs, but I’m not taking him back to Korle Bu. We’ve had enough for this year. Let’s hope.

Providence: Break down

Break down isn’t exactly the right wording. Better it should be called the “break off,” ‘cause that’s what happened. Yesterday, Sly calls to tell me that the SOS school called him because Alexandra forgot her PE clothes. It was just after 1:00 p.m. anyway, and she gets out at 2:00 so I tell him I’ll bring it and just wait for her to close. I hop in the car and she’s waiting there already for the uniform handover.

At 2:00 she’s eager and ready to leave, and I decide we’ll head over to the butcher shop in Community 10 (11? I never can keep track of these communities) and buy some luncheon meat. It’s really mystery meat, but my kids like it and it fries up a little like Taylor ham, so it’s worth the trip. We leave and head home. At the intersection that we’d normally cross, the traffic light isn’t working and the cars on the primary road NEVER give the cars on the secondary road a chance to come through. There’s no such thing as a 4-way stop or all flashing red traffic light. It’s more like every man for himself.

Well, I’m behind a van who is dilly dallying at the intersection, and I decide to make a right turn and go to the next traffic light and then make a left. Normally, I’d go straight across, but this just seemed easier. As I get to the intersection the light is red for me, so I move into the left land and put my turn signal on. Now, I might have mentioned this before, but Ghanaian drivers generally don’t understand the concept of driving courteously. It really is dog-eat-dog on the streets of Tema. But I spot my chance, as a big white 18 wheeler is slowly approaching the light and I know there’s just enough time for me to make the turn in front of him.

And then. THUNK. Make, that a very loud THUNK. And the car doesn’t move. Fortunately, we didn’t move even an inch forward, so I wasn’t in the lane of oncoming traffic, but I was pretty frighteningly close. I couldn’t move the car at all. Another car makes a turn in front of me, and the female driver (who turns out to be an SOS parent with an SOS kid in the back of her car) tells me that something fell off the car. I resist the urge to yell “D’oh!” Another driver in a pick-up also motions that something fell, and I yell out to him, “Can you help me get out of the intersection?”

Miracle of miracles. He stops and gets out. He is going to push me and Alex, in our big-ass mini van, through the traffic light. One thing about Ghanaians, they can really rally to help in an emergency. Within minutes, there were 6 guys helping to push the car through the intersection; one of them ran back and grabbed the thing that had fallen off the car and handed it to me through the open window.

Meanwhile, I’m screaming at Alex to take my cell phone and “Call Daddy!” I know I don’t have enough units to call him for more than a few seconds; I’ve only got about 35 pesawas worth of credit. But Sly picks up and I shout that it’s an emergency and he should call me back. Seconds later, I’m yelling (my adrenaline was really kicking into high gear at this point) that the “shaft” fell off the car and I’m stuck and that a bunch of guys are pushing us to a safe spot.

Sly is somewhat directionally challenged, so it takes a couple of minutes for him to understand exactly where I am but eventually he figures it out. He assures me he’ll send Ekow and call the mechanic and that he’s on his way.

The guys who pushed me are still hanging around, and I know they’re waiting for a tip or something. But the fact is I am flat broke. I’ve got a single cedi to my name, plus half a kilo of mystery meat and 4 melting fruit juice bars. I doubt that that is going to go over big. Instead, I get out and offer firm handshakes and giant thank yous all around and that, fortunately, suffices. They all scatter to the four winds.

Did I mention that Alex was low at this point? We had tested her blood sugar only minutes before, and fortunately, there are a couple of juice bars turning into a puddle, so she’s at least got sustenance. But her diabetes and sugar levels are just another complication to add to my increasing stress level.

Ten minutes later, Ekow pulls up and runs back to the car, heading toward the driver’s side. I guess Sly neglected to tell him about the broken shaft. When he sees that, his eyes roll back into his head and he realizes that the car ain’t going anywhere. A minute later, the mechanic pulls up. He sees it’s the shaft and he’s not happy. You see, that shaft was just put into the car – by him – less than 2 weeks ago. So what happened?

We’re only 10 minutes away from the house (on foot) and Alex has now got a juice bar and a juice box in her system – definitely more than enough sugar – so we leave the driver and mechanic and head home.

Alex, who is definitely wiser than her 8 years, says to me, “It could have been worse.” Yes, it really could have. I could have been on the Motorway doing 65 mph when the shaft broke. Or I could have made that left hand turn in front of the 18 wheeler and stopped dead right in front of him. Or or or or or… there’s a lot of ors to this one.

This intersection appears to have it in for me. It’s the same one we were at when the taxi we were riding in broke down last year. Apparently, though, my guardian angel was with me, yet again. Thank God.

Stuck, then Star Struck, in Ghana

I’m a huge fan of X-Men. The movies, I mean, not the comic books. Yes, they’ve all got a great plot, neat-o special effects and terrific actors. But Hugh Jackman just makes my blood run hot. Dang, that man is all of that! You better believe that when I saw that X-Men Origins: Wolverine was listed as playing at the Silverbird Theatre in the Accra Mall (the only real movie theatre in all of Ghana, by the way), I was going to be there! And let me tell you how exciting it is to have actual first run movies playing here in Ghana! Oh yes, we can get DVDs of new movies only days after they’re released elsewhere in the world, but they’ve all got Chinese subtitles and the audio never quite meshes with the video. It’s really not the same.

So, the plan was, me and the kiddies would go on Monday to the 10:25 a.m. showing, because it’s least crowded and then afterward we could cruise around the mall a bit. Early (6:45) that morning, hubby called Ekow, our taxi driver, and gave him instructions to pick us up at the house by 9:00 a.m. sharp. A tad on the early side, I know, but you have to give Ghanaian taxi drivers some leeway, because no matter what time you tell them you need them by, they are going to be late.

By 9:00 a.m., we were all packed and ready and my kids were getting antsy. (They love a good movie, too.) Then at 9:15 (note the time well, please) my cell phone rang.

Me: Hello

Ekow: Madam, it’s Ekow. I’m going to be late.

Me: "You're already late" and "What else is new?" were the two responses that immediately came to mind, but I held back. Ekow, where are you now?

Ekow: Well, I had to take a passenger to Legon, so I’m on the Motorway now. I’m about 15 minutes from you.

Me: Where exactly on the Motorway are you?

Ekow: Well, I’m near the roundabout.

Me: Which roundabout?

Ekow: The Tetteh Quarshie roundabout. (Which is the other side of the Motorway, and I’m asking him this because the Accra Mall – which is where we’re headed – is about 200 yards from the Tetteh Quarshie roundabout.)

Me: So have you paid the toll yet?

Ekow: Well, I’m not exactly on the Motorway yet. I’m in Legon on the road to the Motorway.

Me: Oh.

Ekow: There’s a lot of traffic. (Again, so what else is new?) But I’ll be there in 15 minutes. (Only if he's got a helicopter. Legon is about 35 minutes away from us in zero traffic, so I don’t think so.)

Me: Ekow, forget about picking us up. We had a specific time that we had to be at the Accra Mall and you will not be able to get here in time. Just pull into the mall parking lot and wait for us.

======================

Yeah, I know, I could have waited for him, and we could have gone to a later showing, but really, I am so sick and tired of disappointing the kids because of someone else's indifference. So, we rushed out of the house and flagged down a taxi. Of course, that wasn’t difficult because as soon as we stepped through the gate, taxi drivers started honking their horn (“Oh look, a rich obroni! Beep! Beep! Beep!”). The lucky taxi driver tells me it will be GHC 12 to take us to the mall. I counter with GHC 10, since I had just asked Ekow this question before we hung up. Grumbling, lucky driver accepts GHC 10. Good, because I’m sure there’s some other taxi driver understudy waiting in the wings.

Lucky taxi driver gets us to the mall by 10:00 a.m., so we’ve got a little time to kill before we go up to the movie theatre. Our intent is to not buy at the theatre concession stand, because just like in America, it’s a freaking rip-off. We head over to Shop Rite and buy nice cold sodas that I carry (hide) in my purse. I always travel with a pretty big bag, so at least I don’t look conspicuous.

Up we go to the theatre and pay our GHC 31 – American movie, American prices, my friends. GHC 10 for me and GHC 7 for each of the kids. No bargain matinee deal at all. We’re ready, except for one thing: Popcorn! The machine is being repaired. This is a problem. My kids enjoy the popcorn equally as much as the movie, and without it, it’s just like, well, like staying home! I’m assured by the Ghanaian manager of the concession stand that the popcorn machine will be working any minute now. Oh, boy. I don’t even want to try to interpret “any minute now” for my kids.

We head on up to our seats (popcorn-less) and find that it’s just the four of us in the whole theatre. A few minutes pass and three girls come in (and it turns out that they’re from the same school as my kids – small world, huh?!) Then an older obroni gentleman takes a seat. The 10:25 a.m. showing of Wolverine Origins had all of eight people in it.

We’re sitting there pulling out our (illicit, non-theatre-purchased) sodas when all of a sudden – LIGHTS OUT!! The theatre went pitch black. No lights on the floor to lead us out, no emergency lighting system activated, no nothing. Pitch.Black. After a few minutes, a lantern is brought in and placed on the bottom step. Yeah, that helps. Not.

Alex and I make our way down to the lobby to check on the popcorn progress. Nothing. Because the popcorn machine runs on electric and there’s LIGHTS OUT! Back up into the heat and gloom to our seats. Finally, after about ten minutes, the lights come back on, the air conditioner cranks up and the previews start to roll.

Now, if we’d been in America we would have been treated to at least half a dozen previews, and then, maybe then, the popcorn would be ready before the movie started. As it is, we get only two previews, and then the movie begins. And just as the music starts, the popcorn smell wafts up from the lobby. And the kids start the litany, “Mom, we want our popcorn.” And lucky mom gets to miss the whole first seven minutes of Wolverine's origin while buying 4 little (expensive) bags of popcorn. Oh well, I guess I’ll watch for the pirated DVD version on the streets. Heck, it’ll be cheaper than buying another movie ticket!

On second thought, Hugh Jackman on the big screen, in all his glory (and yes, it was all pretty glorious, especially the waterfall scene)… hmmm… maybe GHC 10 isn’t so much money after all. (Note to self: Next time, remember to bring binoculars for said waterfall scene.) And maybe I’ll still buy the DVD… for the kids.