A Trip to Remember (Day 1)

All international trips inherently pose their own challenges and require a certain amount of flexibility, but our recent adventure to the States tops all others.

It began early in the morning last Thursday when we got to the Vienna airport to check in and Kim began to feel sick - like maybe she would throw up or even pass out. Despite the fact that this kind of behavior is not the norm for Kim, she has felt somewhat similar on other early mornings when she had not eaten anything. So, after finally getting checked in for our flight and finding Kim looking a bit pale after having thrown up, I ran to get some food. Well, when I returned, I found her lying on the ground in the airport and shortly thereafter she was taken downstairs in a wheelchair to some sort of medical clinic in the airport. After a glass of cold water, a 10 minute break lying down and a brief visit from some form of medical personnel who took her pulse, checked her oxygen and temperature, Kim convinced them that she could fly. She was then wheeled down to the gate so that we could make our flight to London.

Before we even got off the ground, Kim had thrown up into a couple of those airplane bags. In the air not only did the pain in her stomach that caused her to throw up increase, she began to feel pain in her shoulder. As the flight continued the pain did as well, so we finally told the flight attendant, who had already noticed Kim was sick and had been checking on her, that Kim would need to see a doctor in the (London) Heathrow airport. A different flight attendant returned, checked Kim's pulse and informed us that paramedics would meet us on the plane once we had landed. After landing the paramedics came on the plane, checked Kim out and then took all of us in an ambulance to the nearest hospital. (The ride in the ambulance was one of the highlights of the trip for the kids!) As we arrived at the hospital, I reached down to look at the time on my phone, and the phone was not there. I quickly walked back to the ambulance to see if it had fallen out in the vehicle, but it was not there either. In the ER, which in London is actually called the A&E (Accident and Emergency), they took blood from Kim to run tests and a kind doctor checked her out and thought she probably had some sort of viral infection. (Kim was a bit concerned about the combination of the pain in her shoulder and in her abdomen because she had a similar pain with her ectopic pregnancy.) All the while, we were hoping to make our 12:25 PM flight to States, but the doctor ordered x-rays and wanted Kim to spend at least a few hours in the Observation Ward.

Though her white blood cell count was somewhat high, everything else looked good and the x-rays were clear, so the doctor didn't seem too concerned. Before he would release her, he wanted the surgeon to check her out to potentially help identify the pain in her abdomen. At that point we knew we wouldn't make our flight, so the doctor authorized a local phone call for me (and, yes, even the local phone calls had to be authorized) to call British Airway's customer service line, which took over 20 minutes before I ever got ahold of a real person. They told us there was another flight at 4:45 PM, so that was our next goal.

When the surgeon came along and checked Kim out in the Observation Ward, he suspected the problem was related to her appendix, which was the first time this possibility had even been mentioned. He wanted to do an ultrasound and then surgery, if needed. Though the surgeon mentioned that several people were already scheduled for an ultrasound and that the medical system in London does not function exactly like it does in the States, he came back about 10 minutes later and said they could squeeze Kim in, so they took her away for an ultrasound. Sure enough, the ultrasound confirmed that her appendix were inflamed and needed to be removed. At this point, we realized that we would not be flying that day and Kim got permission to make an international call to her mom to let her know what was going on and that we would not be coming into Ohio that night. The surgeon reassured Kim that if everything looked ok once they "got in there" and could perform the surgery laparoscopically, she would potentially be able to fly the next day. Kim then got an IV and waited for a few hours to be taken to the theatre (this is the British-English equivalent to our operating room) for surgery.

At this point, I knew we needed to find a place to stay and the nice staff in the Observation Ward gave me a book with different places (bed and breakfasts and hotels) to stay near the hospital. After calling about five places only to be told they had no room, one nurse in the Children's A&E suggested a hotel; they only had smoking rooms available, but their sister hotel had a room. The kids had already watched two movies, played Nintendo, watched a TV show on the iPod and were so worn out - all they wanted to do was go to the hotel and crash. I had to explain to them that we needed to wait and check on Mom after her surgery. Around 7:30 PM I saw one of the surgeons come into the Children's area and thought maybe he was finished with the surgery, but he did not come and talk to me immediately. Finally, he came in and said that everything went well and that he was able to perform the surgery laparoscopically. We had to wait for Kim to be moved to the ward where she would be staying the night before we could see her. Sometime after 8:00 PM we did get to see her, but she was pretty out of it. The kids and I then waited on a cab and didn't make it to the hotel until after 10:00 PM. Cotter just about fell asleep in the cab, though it only took about 5 minutes to make it to the hotel. We all fell asleep pretty quickly after the long 17+ hour day.