Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Wednesday, November 12th

Today was hard getting up. We both slept through the night, getting up about 7:30am. We had a 9pm apt. over at the hospital. We went to breakfast, and sat next to a couple of ladies from California, a mother and her grown daughter in her 30's. The daughter was there for disc surgery, too, we discovered as we all walked over to the hospital.

Once there, in the lobby we met two other candidates for disc surgery. One was a lawyer from Florida and his wife, and the other was a family from Virginia, whose daughter has scoliosis of the spine. We'll all be having surgery on Friday morning. That's our cohort. The fifteen yr old will be the first for the surgery. I think I'm to be one of the later ones having only 2 discs, instead of 3, replaced.

We also chatted with the members of last week's cohort. Two ladies from Michigan had surgery, a mother and her daughter, all got S1/L5 and L4/L5 replaced (2). They were doing very well and encourage us all. I mentioned I was having the same discs done. You identify yourself at the hospital by "which ones are you having replaced?". It's rather funny. First, you're pleased to have met a fellow English-speaker, and you find out where they're from. Then the next question is "which one(s) you having done?"

So this morning's meeting in the lobby was rather like "old home week." We spent the morning there, going over things with admissions, a doctor, and then the anesthesiologist. I also found out that the doctor who will be doing my surgery is Dr. Hans Zechel. I believe he's the one with the most experience here. There will be no general anesthesia. I found that surprising. However, it makes for a better recovery, less problems and all.

After the morning spent at the hospital, John and I decided we needed some exercise. We walked to the nearby town of Schierbrok, which is about 15 minutes away. We passed livestock of all varieties:
These ponies were in the front yard of a house.
The one standing is no more than 3 ft tall.











The cows, although not California Contented Cows, were Beautiful Bremen Cows.










And the sheep provide the wool that Bremen is famous for. I'm going to see if I can find those wool shops I've heard about. I shared knitting secrets with the local nurses this morning, and was told that Bremen hosts several fine wool shops.






This is the Schierbrook Elementary School.
Of course, I had to take a picture of it.










Shopping poses its challenges when you don't speak German, and they don't speak English.
We did a lot of pointing and nodding. We ended up carrying home a couple of sandwiches, a rumball, two bottles of beer, and a wedge of brie.
We hadn't remembered that Europeans provide their own grocery sacks....good thing we had lots of pockets.

No comments: