Exploring Hospitals and Medical Procedures Throughout the World with Debi

Of course, many of my U.S. friends know that I just spent a little time in the hospital here in Muscat. I received excellent surgical and anesthesiological care for gangrenous gallbladder. It was emergency surgery, and it had to come out immediately! I had no choice but to submit to the procedure even though the prospect was somewhat daunting.

Some of the treatment of patients is the same and some is a little different here due to cultural view-points. For instance, nurses still wake you up from a sound sleep to administer blood pressure tests and take your temperature. But other than during my surgery, no narcotic pain relievers were administered. I basically survived post-op on tylenol and ibuprofen! Now, for some of my readers, that may be par for the course, but as the survivor of several surgical procedures in the U.S., I can tell you for me it was definitely not par for the course!

I did survive, however, and am doing better. I have a few images from my time in the hospital just to satisfy the curiosity that many of you have expressed.

Here are some images of my room:

Don sleeping while waiting for my test results
(per his usual!) and where he spent a couple
of nights--refusing to leave my side!

The foot of my bed facing the TV. Door to the room is on the left,
Don is on the right.

Hospital food tastes similar the world over, I guess! I was on a liquid diet in preparation for the ultrasound and surgery.
I can honestly say, thought, that I've never been brought a carafe of hot water in order to make my own
cup of tea!

 Television in an Arabic country, third-world almost at that, is definitely a hoot. Just to give you an idea of the variety available, here is a sample of what I had to watch in my room:

Japanese cartoons in Arabic

Arabic-language version of a paid advertisement.

Live action of Muslims making pilgrimage to their holiest place in Mecca.

"Football" action in Arabic

What I call "snowy-vision." Sound was just as bad as the picture!

BBC--at least I could get weather from the U.S.!

Arab talk show

Chinese television in Chinese with Arabic subtitles.

Needless to say, there was very little TV watched during the 3 or so days I spent in the hospital! Thank goodness I had downloaded some e-books to my iPad!

Here is Don's favorite picture--taken of me just a few minutes prior to be hauled off to surgery. Thankfully, I didn't remember much for several hours after that! I can promise you I was not as chipper upon my leaving the hospital as I was for this lovely picture! Hope you enjoyed my trip to one of the best hospitals in Muscat!