Istanbul, Turkey

A big day … after three and half weeks in this room in this Istanbul hospital, and seven weeks since we left Tasmania, we are leaving for home. The Insurance Company have arranged Business Class flights (to allow me to elevate my leg) via Dubai and Melbourne flying Emirates. Incidentally, today (May 19) is a public holiday in Turkey – referred to as “Youth and Sports Day”, it is dedicated to the Father of the Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the youth of the Republic. The date is significant as the beginning of Ataturk’s fight against the Ottoman regime following the First World War. Coincidently, we were admitted to this hospital on another public holiday – April 23 is “National Sovereignty and Children’s Day”, and it commemorates the first meeting of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 1920. These holidays are a good illustration of just how important Ataturk and the post WW1 republic is to the modern-day Turkey.
We said goodbye to the night staff – Meral has been a fantastic nurse over our time here, and her friend Temel is a male nurse who works in Intensive Care but has frequently visited us to say “hello” in his very broken English. An enduring image of my time here was the day when Temel and Dayna were sitting in the corner of my room, each armed with their laptops, and having a conversation using an on-line English-Turkish translation website. Duelling laptops!!! This morning Temel used a translation website to tell us that he and Meral will miss us, they like us, and wished us a good trip home. This is characteristic of the friendships we’ve had with our nurses and doctors here, and typical of the beautiful nature of the Turkish people.
More preparations for leaving – I have the intravenous drip removed from my arm. It has been there since Day One, and has changed locations every 3 or 4 days across both arms and hands, to enable drip-fed antibiotics three times a day. To not have this thing sticking into my body somewhere is like being set free. Quite symbolic, really.
We shower, and the lovely male attendant gives me a shave and a trim. I haven’t felt this spruce for a month. Baris calls in to say hello, and goodbye. Being a holiday today, Dr Mik called in yesterday to say goodbye. Sadly we will miss saying goodbye to several staff, as they are off today. A quick change of the dressing before we go, and a final farewell to the Plastic Surgeon. The insurance company called to make sure all is ready. The flight itinerary arrives by fax. The hospital manager confirms that the bill has been taken care of. The handover of all medical reports written by both surgeons for us to take back to our Tasmanian doctors. And an official “OK to fly” for us to present to the airline at the airport.
At 4.30, at taxi arrives to take us to the airport. Our flight leaves at 7.30. On the way to the airport (I finally get to see some more of Istanbul), the Turkish flag is flying everywhere for today's celebrations, and if it's not the distinctive red flag, then it's a portrait of Ataturk. Many high-rise office buildings drape a huge flag down one side, as big as the building itself. 
As we finally depart, I pause to reflect. Turkey is a fabulous country, and we’ve loved being here. The last three weeks may have been frustrating, but even under these trying conditions, the Turkish friendship and warmth has shone through. To call it an eventful seven weeks is an understatement, and half of this period was not planned the way it actually unfolded. But then again, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.

Istanbul Surgical Hospital

Another week rolls by in Istanbul – same hospital room, same affliction, same routine. But things are looking up, and we are rushing headlong to a belated journey home. My left foot (there’s a good movie title) is improving every day, with less aches and pains and more involuntary muscle spasms as my foot tries to break out of its restrictive bandages. These spasms make me jump and are quite unpleasant, but I’m happy to put up with them if it means that the injuries are settling down and improving. The dressing is changed every two or three day, and while the skin graft is still looks very raw, the plastic surgeon is happy with its progress and is confident the new skin coverage will do its job. He tells us that the second injury, to the heel, can wait until we return to Australia, and he has granted us permission to travel. The donor site for the skin graft (the left thigh) is recovering so well that it is driving me mad with itch. To strengthen my legs I am doing physio exercises and walking down the corridor several times each day, on crutches.
It’s been a month since the accident, and we have been in this hospital three weeks. That three weeks has been as much a journey as the prior three weeks, even though I haven’t left the confines of this building. Such a journey has left a lasting impression on me, as any traveling holiday would do. The things that must be endured to get well – the pain, the medical procedures, and the needles of all shapes and sizes that get injected into every part of your body to either put something in or take something out. I feel like a pin-cushion – any unsuspecting drug-enforcer inspecting my arms must get suspicious by the number of pin-holes. Of course, all these are merely inconveniences – bumps in the road that will eventually lead us home.
We’re now negotiating with our doctors and the travel insurance company for our release from hospital and our return flights home, in the coming days. We are making enquiries about follow-up surgery in Launceston to fix my heel, so there’s more hospital time for me as soon as I return. The care we received in the Turkish hospitals has been second-to-none, and we will actually miss the staff that have become our friends over the past 3 weeks.

Istanbul Surgical Hospital

So our journey continues. Through time, not space. We remain in the same space – this single bed hospital room in Istanbul, with Anne’s fold-out single bed in the corner. The plastic surgery finally happened last Thursday, and it provided some surreal moments. We were expecting a general anaesthetic, but when I was wheeled into theatre, the Doc said “we’re going to do something different today”. My mind started racing – were we all gonna go down the pub instead, or were they gonna try a new technique on this unwary Australian guinea pig? Instead of a GA, I had an epidural – an anaesthetic injected into the back to deaden me from the waist down. A better method, avoiding the potentially dangerous GA, and consequently I was awake for the entire two hour procedure. A curtain across my chest forced me to miss the floor show, and by the sound of the device that was used to cut the skin off my thigh, I think I was happy not to witness the carnage. The conversation between the theatre staff was casual, the occasional laughter, but unfortunately in Turkish, so I was the odd-man-out. So I was forced to watch the digital clock on the wall and listen to the Istanbul radio station that was playing in the background. The playlist was 1980s western pop – Video Killed the Radio Star, Grease, Sam Brown’s “Stop”, Footloose, Oasis, and Kylie (with “I’ve Got to be Certain”). My daughter Leah’s favourite artist is Kylie, and why else would a Turkish radio station be playing Kylie if not to let me know that Leah was with me in that operating theatre?
So I emerged from this session with the top of my foot finally having skin coverage (although still swathed in bandages and a plaster backslab), and an additional “injury” to my left thigh wrapped in a bandage and feeling like a second-degree burn. Oh well, something to take my mind off my injured left foot. Two days later I had the thigh dressing removed, to expose the wound to air and allow it to dry. This was probably the most pain I’d felt since the accident – no amount of pain relief could stop me feeling the doctor peeling off this bandage that had stuck to the wound after the post-op weepage.  And I might add that the final scene was not a pretty sight, but one step closer to coming home.
We were told that the other area of concern – the heel – was progressing on its own by regenerating the missing muscle. If this continued, the Istanbul surgeon could reapply the skin flap for the journey home, and I then have the heel operation in Launceston. Maybe.
In the meantime, Anne has been getting out and about, taking walks near the hospital and even catching a taxi further afield to a fashionable shopping district where she buys paperback novels to read, and even bought a video camera for the laptop to allow us to talk to home.

Istanbul Surgical Hospital

It’s been nearly two weeks since we landed in this single bed room at the Istanbul hospital … and there is no clock on the wall. Of course all it takes is an easy glance at the mobile phone to get the time, but when you’re just killing time lying in bed, time becomes a strange enemy. The longer we spend here, the longer the recovery must be taking, the more we miss home and want to go home.
I can update the travel blog by saying that I hobble to the toilet a few times each day, and every couple of days I get taken to theatre where surgeons change my dressing and continue to clean up my foot. I’m a regular now – the theatre staff know me, and welcome me like a member of the family. Their smiling face and warm Turkish humour is just what you need when you’re in such unfamiliar and clinical surroundings. One theatre attendant’s name is Assan, and his cheeky beaming smile is so settling. I have to transfer myself from the trolley to the operating table, and one day Assan left a metre gap and challenged me to take the leap. The theatre staff even put on music for me -some lovely gentle acoustic traditional music. These are highlights in my day, believe it or not.
The other highlights are all the calls and emails from home – a genuine tsunami of love and good wishes coming from Australia, and a few from Canada. Makes me feel very humble; they are all appreciated and lift our spirits immensely.
The hospital food is just that, hardly interesting but edible and nutritious. Thankfully there is a café just outside the hospital where Anne has become a regular customer. They even deliver her order to our room, even though they are not connected to the hospital at all. This enables us some genuine Turkish fare to supplement hospital meals. This must also be the longest we’ve gone without alcohol for ages.
I feel that my foot is recovering slowly every day, and all that’s left is plastic surgery (over two operations) to replace skin and muscle lost since the accident. Then we can come home and start the long rehabilitation road, but there are no dates for those yet.

Istanbul Surgical Hospital

I don’t quite know why you’d want to update a Travel Blog when you’re not actually traveling, but it's all I got I'm afraid. I won’t bore you with medical details, as much to say that several small operations later, my left foot is improving every day, but treatment continues. Skin grafts are scheduled to start next week. I am, however, stuck to this bed with my foot heavily bandaged  and fitted with a plaster cast under my foot and up the back of my calf. The staff are great, some lack English but they are good fun and very understanding; the hospital food is typical hospital food – lacking imagination and repetitive every day; the only English television is CNN and BBC World News – there’s only so much Swine Flu one can take. We had our daughter Dayna from Toronto for few days for family support – another one of those surreal events that have overtaken our lives in the past couple weeks. It was wonderful to see her – certainly a bonus – but she’s returned to Canada now. Anne is now sleeping on a convertible bed in my room.
Let’s see if I can find a few new photos to post ….