Life is a Journey: Live it - Part 130

After afternoon tea and dinner, we were chatting well into the night. The next morning, a Thursday, around two pm, I was asked to come down to the OP floor and wait for the next step of my treatment. Meanwhile, the nice patient from Cuxhaven had left, and a new patient entered room 621. He was a man born on Island, living in Hamburg Ottensen with his second wife. He and the nice man from Cuxhaven knew each other, as whenever he came into the UKE, the Islander would leave the hospital for home. They met at the reception, exchanging a few friendly words. The atmosphere in the hospital was very much like a big family. Very peculiar and yet calming my nerves down. The new old patient had been a cancer patient for over twenty-six years, no longer working, and still young. His prostate was removed, and later black cancer emerged in his body. This time around, it had shown up in his ear, hard to come by and cut off. He stayed only for one day and night, asked to return the following week on Thursday. He smiled at me when I mentioned he would see the man from Cuxhaven again.

I waited only for a few minutes on the bench before OP room 2 before I was called in. Dr Tegtmeier said the lab indicated from the sample they got the previous day that two spots needed to be cut again. He injected below my eye. Meanwhile, I was used to the procedure, and we laughed a lot. I mentioned Xenophobia ongoing in South Africa against some African migrants, and he wondered. I had to explain the term Xenophobia as he had never come across that word. He showed great interest in Africa, and I felt on the OP table as if I would lecture one of my students in a horizontal position. He was very grateful for our interesting conversation while cutting at two spots. Ten minutes passed, and I was released. Before I left the room, I was informed he would be a father for the first time three weeks from now. I was so happy for him. Back in my room, I enjoyed the cake served for afternoon tea and chatted with my neighbour. Just after dinner, I walked around the hugh space the University Hospital Eppendorf covered, seeing patients in bandages enjoying the warm evening sun, nurses and doctors going, cycling or driving home. The hospital got emptied except for the patients on the wards. I took time out to think about life and how grateful I was not to be in Africa but in very professional hands with a very good medical system. I felt sorry for my people in Ghana and what they had to endure when being sick. And I was grateful to have had such a wonderful, healthy life with limited health challenges. Even what I faced was nothing, especially compared to what I witnessed during my admission into that hospital.

My third day, Friday, started with the Islander leaving us and waving goodbye, knowing he would return the following week. The male nurse came asking me to move room, as my room 621 would be turned into a women's room only. He pushed my bed into two rooms further down the corridor, where I greeted a man in bed. Next to him was a wheelchair. It turned out he was known to the father of a twelve-year-old boy, Louis, whom I taught English. Both were in the same branch servicing MRT machines. Anyone working in Germany in this industry knows the other, he said. The father of Louis started the business and had an aeroplane. One of the three brothers took over the family business and aeroplane, crashed and died. Louis' father stepped in and ran the five-employee business. This patient had encountered two strokes. The first after COVID-19 vaccination. He saw a link between the stroke and the vaccination. The second stroke hit him shortly after. His skin made him very uncomfortable, and his doctor refused to give him medication, which made his situation worse, so he was admitted to the hospital for at least another week, for a total of three weeks. Because of his situation, he had lost his company, a one-man show to repair MRT machines. He was single. That he knew the father of Louis brought a smile on my face.

Around three in the afternoon, long after finishing my afternoon

tea, I was called down to meet my surgeon in the operation theatre number two. Dr Tegtmeier greeted me with good news. The lab informed him that the cancer had been removed completely and the open wound could now be closed. He consulted his second boss, a female doctor, and they agreed on a certain procedure to close the open wound. The bag under my eye was perfect for later, hardly leaving a trace of my problem. It would blend in with my natural facial appearance. The fact that he was a plastic surgeon made the treatment perfect. I had no bleeding, no complications. A clear cut! Great! After everything was done and he informed me to go for a checkup every six months, at least once a year, and to use sun blocker 50+, I was good to go. I took my bag and left for home, where I got a phone call from the hospital. Good to go did not mean to go home but back into my hospital bed. One hour later, I was back in UKE waiting to be discharged the next morning with a letter for my dermatologist for a follow-up procedure. Seven days later, the threads were removed, the plaster no longer needed, and everything looked pretty normal.“

Frieda Schöngruber was impressed and curious at the same time: “It all sounds nice and easy. I am sorry for you after all.“

„You know what?“
„No, please...what is it?“ asked Frieda Schöngruber and emptied her last glass of red wine.

„We people who encounter these things...mine is even nothing...that is what I have learnt in those few days in hospital...,“ I stood up and took a minute to look around into the wide open eyes of the young students. „We do not want to be seen as sick and hear words of pity for what we go through. Yes, we are sick, yes, we have a problem...but yes, we want to live a normal life or at least a life as normal as possible. No one, when he interacts with us should in the back of his mind have the sickness we have or have behind us. We should only see in each other the beauty of life we carry in us. That's all.“

„Powerful words,“ agreed Charles Darwin Jr., putting out the fire for the night.

   Comments0