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.