The Bahamian Medical System: A View from the Ward - or - Shelagh’s Big Break: Part 3

First thing the next morning, I walked to the hospital and found Shelagh in the second bed of a four-bed ward.  She was in great spirits and was comfortable.  Opiates will do that for you.  (Morphine sulfate. Write it down. Ask for it by name.)  She was receiving IV antibiotics, which is what is done for open fractures.  Bone infections are nasty things and need to be prevented with large doses of high-powered antibiotics.

The next couple of days were a lot of waiting.  On Call International, the travel assistance company that was part of our travel insurance, made contact with me (one of the many things the Dream’s crew did for me while I was packing, besides process our passports, was to open an account with them).  There was, of course, paperwork to be filled out, with sections for physician attestation.  We both prodded to get it filled out and sent in, but things operate on Island Time and they’d get around to it.

Two days after surgery Shelagh had follow-up x-rays (all was well) and had the cast removed to visualize the wound (it was healing well).  The next day a physiotherapist got her up and moving a bit.  The question of which would be better, crutches or a walker, was not clearly answered at the time (it did get answered the next day: walker).

That was it as far as excitement goes.  Lots of lying about and healing.  The ward had a TV that was playing Lifetime Movie TV 24/7.  Shelagh and the young girl in the bed next to her watched enough of it that, even with no sound, they figured out the formula.  While everybody was attractive, the heroes and the villains were the really good looking ones, the guy with the red hair and a beard must own the company because he’s got a part in all the movies, and there was always a car chase.

As I headed to the hospital on Tuesday, I realized that you know you’ve been ashore for a while when your ship comes back.

Huc accedit per Somnium!
Latin for 'Here comes the Dream!'
And this entire caption comes from lots of time on my hands.

My route from the PMH main entrance to Shelagh’s ward took me past the Labor and Delivery unit.  Walking out of the hospital one day I heard a woman giving birth who wasn’t a student of the Lamaze Method, but clearly studied the Le Mans Method – she was screaming like a Ferrari.

Visiting hours at PMH are old-fashioned and draconian, as are the nursing sisters who enforce them.  Hours for the wards at PMH are noon to 1pm, and 6pm to 8pm.  I got away with excessive visitation on Sunday, and again on Monday morning, but after that I was persona non grata outside those hours.  

I used my down time to visit all the nearby tourist traps (and spent less than $15 for a pocket knife and a Bahamian flag fridge magnet), nap and draft my blog posts.  I couldn’t bring myself to doing anything more than that while my Sweetie was stuck in that ward.  Hell, I felt guilty about all the sun I was getting walking to and from PMH twice a day that she wasn't getting.

Speaking of opiates, they are freely available over-the-counter in the Bahamas.  Just be sure to complete your recreational activities therapeutic course instead of trying to bring leftovers back with you.

Codeine: Morphine's kid sister

Suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, four days post-injury, the doctors started making noises about discharge.  To back up the talk, all the paperwork suddenly got filled out.  By Thursday morning it was clear that discharge was going to happen.  At noon, her physician came in and told her to get dressed since the discharge orders were written.

Since transportation to CONUS (military term for ‘continental US’) was still pending I had to get her to the hotel.  I called John Knowles from RH Curry, the port agents, to ask if he had a recommendation for a reliable taxi.  With Shelagh being non-weight bearing on her left leg and a bit wobbly on her right, having been bedridden for five days, we didn’t want to just chance it with the next guy in line at the taxi stand.  John was kind enough to come to the hospital and give us a lift in his minivan. 

The hotel lent us a wheelchair, which I really appreciated because I wasn’t looking forward to lugging Shelagh around the room, down to dinner and back upstairs again.

We had a conch dinner that I ran and brought back from Imperial’s, a restaurant that is right across the street from the hotel (where else?).  Conch was, after all, one of the two reasons we came ashore.  We managed to take that off our list without further incident.

I got Shelagh tucked in, we watched a bit of Shark Tank on TV, and then she had the best night’s sleep since we left the Dream (which, by the way, has outrageously comfortable beds).

{Click here for Part 4!}