On Monday 4-Jan, I returned to work but didn't realise it would be a fairly short return. At 10am I rang Kris to see how she was doing and she didn't sound good. She was in so much pain that she couldn't move. I called our assigned health care centre. Fortunately they had an English option but instead of speaking to anyone, I was told to leave a message and person-number and they would call us back at 2pm.
The wait was going to be frustrating, but I left work and headed home via an Apotek (chemist) to get some painkillers.
When I got home Kris was in tears from the pain. The painkillers took a little of the edge off but I knew this was bad.. Possibly return to Australia bad. I'd never seen her in so much pain since she'd first injured it and I couldnt do much more than keep her comfortable and wait for the medical centre to ring back.
We finally got the call back around 2pm and were told "Sorry, we don't have any appointments left today, you really need to call at 8am."
"Ok," we said. "Can you book us in as early as possible for an appointment tomorrow?"
"No," was the reply. "We only book appointments for the current day. Call back tomorrow."
We were pretty frustrated but there wasn't much we could do. They did book her for a physio appointment but not until Thursday.
In the end, the pain got so bad that I rang the Swedish medical care hotline to ask if there was anything we could do. They suggested that we could get a night doctor (called a Locum in Australia) out to visit. It would be expensive (400 kr - about $75) and they usually only visited elderly or geriatric patients, but since it was a quiet night they could be out by midnight.
Kris kept herself pretty much immobile on the upstairs couch and I got the kids to bed. Then we waited.
At midnight, the doctor arrived and checked her pain, reflexes and movement. He said that, while she didn't need a hospital visit, she did need an urgent doctors appointment and when we called tomorrow we needed to make it clear that this was urgent. He gave her some morphine tablets to take the pain away and help her sleep.
Neither of us slept much that night as Kris was still in a lot of pain, but eventually she drifted off at about 2:30am. After checking she was still breathing, I drifted off and was woken by my alarm at 7:55am.
Dead on 8am Tuesday morning I rang the medical centre and left our number and person number. The automated message said they would call back at 9am.
So we waited.
And waited..
By 9:30am I realised we weren't going to get a call. I checked Kristine's phone and then realised the problem. She had both my current mobile phone and my old (first arrival in Sweden temporary number) saved and I'd given the health centre the old one. I quickly rung them again and got the automated service. They'd call back at 11am.
We waited.
At 11am I got a call. "Sorry, we don't have any appointments left for today. You really need to call at 8am." I could have screamed.
I explained that we had called the previous day and missed out and I had called at 8am but left the wrong number. "Yes we saw that. We tried to call but the number didn't work." It didn't seem important that they had our mobile numbers on file anyway. I explained that we'd seen the night doctor and that it was urgent, but they were unmoved. "Sorry. Tomorrow is a public holiday, so if you call at 8am on Thursday you should be able to get an appointment." They hung up.
After a brief tantrum and stomp around the house, I came up with an idea. We didn't have to stay with the centre we were assigned to. I tried to call the local one in Limhamn. It was now 11:30 so I didnt hold much hope of getting in, especially when the automated service said they'd call us back.
We got a call at midday. They could get us in at 1:30, was that ok? Finally!
At 1:00 I managed to get the kids in the car and helped Kris to the door - she was in a lot of pain still. We had to fill in some papers at the doctors to change to their service, and Kris ended up laying on the floor as she wasnt comfortable sitting or standing. We got seen just after 1:30 and the doctor took one look at Kris and said that she needed to go to hospital and they would arrange transport. Not an ambulance, but a transport van so she could lie down.
We were put in a spare room and told to wait, they'd be here around 3pm. The kids were doing well playing on their IPads, until Alana and Tom's went flat. I got them to do some drawing and watch Cameron but it was a long wait. The transport finally arrived at 3:45pm.
The driver was great, he drove slowly so I could follow (it was snowing and my first real drive in the snow and ice) and when he got to emergency he explained to all the doctors that Kris couldn't speak Swedish. I got a park and ran in with the kids and the driver showed us where to go.
The medical staff did some tests and said that she'd compressed the disc in her back and they wanted to run a few more tests. At this point we could see a couple of options - the disc may have been badly strained and need a few weeks of rest, or the disc could have blown completely and she'd need surgery and/or at least 8 weeks of bedrest - which would be hard in a foreign country.
Eventually I took the kids home around 5:30 so they could get dinner and Kristine could rest. While the kids ate, I packed a bag for Kris with a phone charger, some clothes, toiletries and a book to read.
The other Aussie expats were great, offering to babysit or help where they could. I decided to get the kids to bed and then see if Kris wanted me to come stay with her or come in the morning. I didn't like the idea of leaving her in a foreign hospital but the doctors had seemed really good and it was hard with the kids - who'd been excellent but were now tired, bored and worried.
I had just got Tomas into the shower when Kris rung. She'd been given the option to stay in hospital overnight or to head home and rest with some anti-inflammatories and pain killers. It turns out the anti-inflammatory injection, muscle relaxants and painkillers had really helped.
I got Tomas dressed quickly and we raced back to the hospital, in the snow and the dark. I'd been a bit nervous driving in Sweden but its amazing how quickly you forget that when you're driving to pick up your wife from hopsital.
I was a bit disappointed to find Kris lying on the floor in the orthopedic emergency waiting room, apparently when she'd agreed to go they'd pretty much said "Ok we need to bed, up you get." The doctors had been great and looked after her well and they were busy with everyone injuring themselves in the first real snow of winter, but it was a bit annoying.
Turns out that kris had compressed the disc and it was pushing on the nerve root for her leg. She was prescribed a stack of painkillers and anti-inflammatories and told to rest up. They would book an appointment with a spinal specialist later and it was recommended that she go to the physio appointment on Thursday.
So it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but she was still sore and having trouble moving.
The hospital raised a prescription for her medication but they don't issue a script here, instead it gets entered into a medical network under your person-number and you can pick it up at any apotek by showing your card. They suggested a local apotek as it was big and likely had everything in stock. There wasn't any street parking available so I found a carpark building and parked there. It wasn't the best place, there were groups of youths smoking and sitting around and the lights only went on when they detected movement. I left Kris and the kids in the car after locking all the doors and making sure she had her phone and went out to try to find my way to the apotek.
The first exit I took from the carpark led to a long cement corridor with a row of numbered metal doors. Apartments, service rooms? I had no idea. I arrived at a dead end with a locked numbered door and a door with a latch and an emergency exit sign. So I took the emergency exit and ended up in another short corridor with 2 doors, both appeared locked. My door swung shut behind me and I heard the latch click locked. There was no latch release on this side. The other door didn't open when I pushed it and the handle was missing, there was just the metal pin the handle would usually be attached to. I banged my shoulder on the door and it reluctantly opened, revealing that I was back in the carpark again. I made my way back out the way we'd driven in and headed to the Apotek.
The medicine cost us about 600kr ($100) and I ended up with a full bag. I got back to the car without being mugged and we made it home safely.
Kris made a rapid improvement over the next few days and the physio gave her some crutches so she could move better. She was told to have bed rest (Kristine, rest? Yeah right) But she's looking much better today. The pain has gone from a 12 out of 10 to about a 1 or 2 and she's walking much better.
 |
| Kris and her crutches |
No comments:
Post a Comment