hospital

Just a quick word, to confirm that yes, we're back from France. I'd like to say we got back in one piece, but that would be incorrect.

We had a lovely time, two weeks of nothing but sunshine. We spent our time in the pool and on the beach, with the occasional excursion to nearby towns. But unfortunately some of these excursions were for medical reasons. We went to the local baby doctor twice to have a check-up after Mrs.B felt there might be something wrong. Luckily, both times it turned out everything was A-Ok.

Our third medical excursion was for an entirely different reason, but it did involve Mrs.B. It was on the morning of our departure, when she and Wolf went out to get some 'croissants' from the camping store. They had barely left when I heard screams and shouting from both my wife and my son.

I raced out and found both lying on the ground, Wolf crying and panicking while my wife was crying out in pain. It turned out she had stumbled and did something terribly wrong with her ancle. Wolf was Ok, but very frightened by the whole experience.

The local ambulance refused to come for a broken foot, so I had to haul Mrs.B in the car and drive her to the nearest hospital - which was 45 minutes away. Luckily-luckily-luckily I'd bought a GPS before we went to France, I don't know what I would have done without that thing.

A couple of hours later - the French medical care system is about as fast as any African country's - we got the verdict: the ankle was not broken but severely strained. Mrs.B got a plastic clamp around her lower leg and we could drive back home.

Easier said than done: with my wife in one chair and her foot in another, it was up to me to clean the bungalow, get everything into the car (luckily we'd packed the previous evening), return the key, get out the garbage, chase Wolf and his dirty paws out of the bungalow, etc. etc. But in the afternoon we could finally leave.

But it was not  the end of our troubles, because you try to drag a pregnant woman without crutches to the second floor of your hotel when there's no lift. Going to the restaurant alone was an endurance test in hopping.

So the first thing we did when we returned was go get some crutches. To be on the safe side, we made an appointment with our own physician. But he didn't need much time to conclude that something more serious was wrong with that ankle. A couple of X-rays later it was confirmed that a tendon (or part of it, I forgot) got loose and took a bit of bone with it. So recovery will take six to eight weeks, instead of three.

So ever since that fall, I've been running around like crazy. Not only do I have to take care of Mrs.B, but I also have to keep the house clean, do the laundry, do the dishes, get Wolf in and out of bed, get him dressed, bring him to the daycare centre, get him back in the evening, cook...

Six more weeks of this and I'll definitely need another vacation. Too bad that we'll have another newborn baby right about that time.

We went to Bruges last weekend, to visit the in-laws and load up my wife’s old desk that she wants to use for her new office. My mother-in-law and her scandalously younger boy-friend had invited us to participate in a quiz organised by the local district committee. The two of them and myself managed not to get utterly defeated by the other 19 teams, while Mrs. B. slept almost through the entire thing as she was exhausted from working all week and being pregnant all the time.

On Sunday we visited Mrs. B’s grandmother, who has suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. She’s been in hospital ever since, in the geriatric department. She’s in her mid eighties, and although she was getting less lucid lately she managed rather well, although with full-time assistance from her daughters. But after that stroke she’s half paralyzed and unable to speak or to express herself in any other meaningful way. It was sad to see her like this, although Mrs. B. kept up a brave and smiling face and entertained her grandmother until we had to leave. I, on the other hand, didn’t manage much of a conversation. But then again, grandmother seems always very amused by my face, ever since we met for the first time. So she observed me a lot while I pretended to observe the television or a couple of women’s magazines.

My own grandfather is in pretty much the same state as Mrs. B’s grandmother. He’s been moving in and out of hospitals for the last couple of years with an ever increasing rate. A couple of weeks ago he was admitted after a cardiac arrest, and the doctors told my mother and my uncles and aunts to say goodbye. But the old man clung to life with surprising tenacity. His body, that is, because his mind is tugging to leave. One of the few things he still reacts to is my sister’s name. Somehow he remembers that she recently gave birth to a girl, his first grandchild. My mother suspects that he wants to see little Hebe before he dies. Unfortunately, Hebe is not strong enough yet to risk her bringing into a hospital.

It was the driver who noticed them, a father crying, holding his son in his arms. The child was about five years old and unconscious, lying limp in his fathers arms. They had to get to the hospital quickly. Not self-evident in Kinshasa, especially if you don't have transport yourself. And not at all if you're poor, like these people evidently were.