Hospital stay and surgery

Thanks to the rather painful infection, I brought myself to go and see the doctor once more. The doctor said we could try to let the wounds heal on their own (taking at least five months) or operate (recovery time ten days). The choice wasn't hard: walking around with a wound like that on my leg for five months is no fun.

By the way, I chose Apollo Hospital. It's said to be the best hospital in Chennai and known beyond the country's borders. In any case, the hospital made a very good impression; there's a separate desk for foreign patients where they speak understandable English.

Ellen, a very nice girl from Holland (more about her later), came with me for my admission. And at the admission came the big surprise: the hospital would only admit me if I had an "attendant", i.e. a person who stays with me the whole time. Ellen took on this tough job and looked after me well for the five days 🙂

Though I'm not quite sure why you need an attendant like that. I haven't been in a German hospital very often, but the density of nurses seemed awfully high to me. Every ten minutes someone comes into the room, either to measure something, hand out pills, ask whether everything's all right, ask whether anything's missing, bring food, bring drinks, bring the newspaper, clean the room, clean the bathroom or spray mosquito repellent. So it was practically stressful 🙂

The surgery went very well, by the way. I was put under general anaesthetic and then had strict bed rest. For the first time, in the hospital room, I had extended access to Indian television, and I have to say I haven't missed anything. Mostly the box stayed off…

After five days in hospital, several nice visits (thanks, Ieva and Stefan) and some pain, I was allowed to leave and hobble around with my bandage.