Holy Poop! Surgery in Egypt!

So my poor roommate Faye got her appendix taken out. She was feeling a little feverish not that long before and then had some cramping in her side for a few days. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but the nurse at Kenana said it would be a good idea to get things checked out by a doctor. Lucky for her, she went in that night with our friend Hesham to get a check up, and was stunned when they told her she would need to go in for surgery at 11 that evening. Poor girl, she had no idea what hit her.

So I packed an overnight bag and booked it down to the hospital. She was in good spirits in the beginning...her and I were cracking jokes and making the doctors and nurses giggle. Faye is an outspoken no-nonsense kind of girl and let it be known she was none to happy when the nurses prodded her hand without gloves to hook her up to an IV. We had to have Hesham politely explain to them that Faye would no longer accept care without gloves. We also got to accompany her to get an ultrasound. I got to see more of Faye than she's probably seen of herself.

Joking aside though, the whole thing was pretty scary. We wound up waiting in her hospital room for the results of her blood test to know for sure whether or not she was officially going under the knife, but by 11, the doctor still hadn’t showed up. We sent Hesham to ask the nurse about it, but instead of sending the doctor in to talk to us, the nurses came in, tossed a gown at Faye, and put her on a gurney. I was pissed we didn't get any kind of assurance or information about the procedure, but Hesham spoke to the doc and assured us everything would be fine. Apparently they were only 80% sure before surgery, but they don’t wait to be positive in women because the appendix can do serious damage to your female goodies if not taken care of. We like to think they were protecting Faye’s unborn children.

Poor Faye was quickly wheeled downstairs and we all waved at her as they took her into the operating room. I guess they didn’t explain anything they were doing to her on the operating table. They just poked her with morphine and something to knock her out. It sounded terrifying. After an hour she came out of surgery shaking with tears in her eyes. Mousad and Raf surprised her by being there when she came out though, which made her cry more…she had quite the fan club cheering her on and assuring her everything was okay. In the two days at the hospital, she probably had at least 3-6 people there with her the whole time. Hooray for Egyptians!

Good thing they took her appendix out though. The doctors were cracking up when they handed us the jar with her appendix…apparently it was the biggest one any of them had ever seen, not to mention the fact that it was in the wrong spot. It looked like something out of x-files to me. Lucky for her though, the doctor was really great. Hesham’s step dad is a doctor and hooked her up with the best tummy doctor in Egypt. Her scar is only 3 centimeters long and the stitches are on the inside so it should heal nice and smooth.

I don’t know. Getting operated on in Egypt would be the last thing I would want to go through. While the hospital wasn’t terrible, there were still a lot of basic things that made you squirm: lack of gloves, pain killers given in saline solution and not directly into the IV, lack of communication, no biohazard anything, smoking in the stairwells etc. That’s also not to mention that since sanitation isn’t what it is in the States, and we are in Africa, the risk for HIV if higher. The guidebook specifically says to stay away from dentists. From what I read though, it sounds like as long as you’re at a good hospital, the risk is low.

Good news is Faye is at home and doing well. She’s walking less and less like an old person and in good spirits…which means wise cracking and being sassy as hell.

These are my graphic interpretations of the event that transpired on late Tuesday night. For those of you that don't speak Arabic, "a-haa" (emphasis on the "ha") means "shit".