With blue lights to the hospital. Blood on the wall

Events of 28.06.2006

After one of the worst nights of my life so far, I’m glad of the rising sun. My condition has not improved in the slightest. On the contrary, I believe that the pain has not yet reached its full potential. Without even having slept for a few minutes, I feel even more powerless and desperate than yesterday. The last spark of improvement is smothered by a meter-high wave.

I try to spoon my breakfast into my mouth while lying on my side. Tanja has soaked muesli in water. Apart from the fact that even under normal conditions I wouldn’t particularly enjoy this watery gloop, I don’t feel the slightest bit hungry. I haven’t been able to get up since yesterday afternoon. When I have to pee, I just turn on my side and urinate in the grass. A method that allows me not to drive the pain through the top of my skull.

Before Huib’s employee arrives to drive us to Bucharest, Tanja gives me an opiate. A doctor in Germany gave me this strong painkiller in case of an emergency. “You can still run with it even if you have a major injury. It will help you get out of a danger zone,” he promised. I never thought I would be in such a situation, but now I am. “I hope it works,” I whisper as Tanja puts a glass of water to my lips so I can wash the stuff down. “It will certainly bring you relief. I’m sure it will get you back on your feet. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be on the plane this afternoon. A German specialist will examine you tomorrow at the latest. I’m sure everything will be fine. Don’t worry,” I gratefully hear her comforting and confident words.

At 8:00 a.m., one of Huib’s protégés brings the cell phone. He uses sign language to make us understand that Huib wants to speak to us. Tanja says thank you. “Yes Huib. Thanks for your call. Denis had a bad night. I gave him the opiate 10 minutes ago. Yes, you can send for us. It will certainly help. Sure, he’ll be fit for transportation,” I listen to the one-sided conversation.

By 10:00 a.m. I already have the second opiate in me. It has had zero effect so far. Not even the pain has eased. My despair can hardly be described. Tanja tries not to let her fear show. The gypsy boy hands Tanja the cell phone again. “No, he doesn’t react to the painkiller. What? No, it’s not having the slightest effect. He’s in a very bad way. He really needs to get out of here. An ambulance? That’s a good idea. None of your employees want to take responsibility? I can understand that. Don’t worry, the 300 euros for the ambulance are fine. No, please don’t book a flight. He can’t walk an inch. No airline will take him on board in this condition. All that matters now is getting Denis to a clinic,’ I hear her talking to Huib. Somehow I still believe that none of this is my business. It must be someone else. Definitely not me, the adventurer who has mastered every situation, no matter how dangerous. Tears run down my cheeks again. The ambulance is promised for 13:00 noon. How I’m supposed to hold out until then is a mystery to me. I try with little success to put myself into a kind of trance to escape the hellish reality.

After an eternity, we hear voices. When the doctor and his assistant come around the corner of the house with a collapsible stretcher, it takes a load off my mind. I can finally leave this garden. Away from the barking dogs, the needless sun, the indescribable fear of uncertainty. The doctor measures my blood pressure. “Can they go?” he wants to know. “No,” I reply. He asks where the center of the pain is, etc. Then he injects me with another painkiller which finally gives me some relief after a short time. It only takes minutes for the two of them to push the bar under my body. With the help of two boys from the village, they lift me off the ground. It shakes and rocks a little. I’m waiting for the ultimate shot. The pain of pain, but it doesn’t come. From my perspective, I see the sky, branches, trees, gutters, until they push me into the ambulance. The doors slam shut. Tanja sits next to me to reassure me. She holds my hand. “Everything will be fine,” she says and smiles. I am so happy to have her by my side. What if I had been here alone? A thought that makes me shudder. When the engine starts, a slight vibration goes through the passenger compartment. Then we bump over the gravel and the bad road. The pain is great but bearable thanks to the medication. Suddenly I hear the siren. “What’s going on?” I ask. “We are on the main road and speed through the queues of cars. The driver literally cuts a swathe through the traffic,” reports Tanja. “Tatü! Go for it! Tatü!” it screeches in my ears. So far I’ve only heard the terrible noise from a distance. I always thought of the poor pig behind the frosted glass panes and was glad to have nothing to do with this unfortunate person. But this time the roles are reversed. The tatü, tatü, definitely concerns me.

Blood on the wall

The fact that there is no air conditioning in the ambulance means that I’m dripping with sweat. I don’t know if it’s the heat, the medication or the style of the Romanian driver, because I suddenly feel sick. When we arrive at the municipal hospital in Bucharest, I am literally dazed. I am pushed through long corridors, around corners, through crowds of people, injured people, nurses, doctors and whatever else there is in such a large health center. In front of me, two men are trying to push open a door. It’s obviously jammed, because they have to use all their strength until the thing moves. After all, I’m in the accident and emergency department. Blood stains disfigure the wall. People moan. It smells like sterilizer and other things I can’t define. A disgruntled nurse sits at a rollaway bed. The look on her face is downright frightening. The patient is just as immobile as I am. A man in a green coat appears in my field of vision. His round face smiles at me. It looks to me like the compassionate, confident smile of an overworked doctor. He says something in Romanian. I look questioningly at Tanja, who is still holding my hand. A man who is also standing next to my stretcher starts talking to the doctor. It is a business friend of Huib. Huib organized him to translate for us because he was already on his flight home at the time. I am grateful that he took the time to help a foreigner in need. Next to him is Huib’s secretary. She doesn’t speak a word of English but has also been sent by Huib to support us.

“He wants to know how this happened to you?” asks our translator in a quiet, barely audible voice. Tanja tells the man in green how the accident happened. His brow furrows. “We have to x-ray your husband,” whispers the translator, passing on the doctor’s instructions. “I need an MRI scan. An X-ray won’t help,” I say desperately. “I’m sorry. Only accident patients get MRI scans,” we hear our translator whisper. “I had an accident,” I say. “The doctor means traffic accidents. Serious accidents,” we hear the unsatisfactory explanation. You don’t have to go under the wheels to break your back, I think to myself, but I’m too weak to argue further.

“If you want, we can give you a kind of drug substitute. The drug is not yet approved in Europe and America and can cause allergies, but it will help you,” says the doctor with a thoughtful expression without making the slightest attempt to examine me. When I hear that, I am startled. What do I want with a drug substitute? He’s not going to let my intervertebral disc jump between my vertebrae again. It goes through my head. I look at Tanja in despair. “What do you usually do?” I ask. “Doesn’t sound good,” she says, also at a loss. Suddenly a man jumps up next to me. Because the poor, tormented patients sit almost on top of each other here for reasons of space, he has also been sitting close to my stretcher for some time. “I know exactly what you have! I also know exactly where it hurts!” he says in good English and presses his elbow into my left buttock. “Aaahh! Yes, it hurts like hell! Stop it!” I shout in agony. “Here, these are my MRI scans. Do you see? The same as yours,” he says and shows the images to the doctor. At first I thought the man was also a doctor, a doctor sitting here to be treated. But now I realize that it’s just one patient. Tanja and I watch in shock as the doctor studies the images. Then the two of them continue talking in Romanian. It suddenly makes me break out in a cold sweat. How can a reasonable doctor look at someone else’s images and draw conclusions about my injury?

Suddenly the door to the emergency room is pulled open. Directly behind me, two nurses push a young woman into the already overcrowded room. Her neck is in a neck brace. It looks like she had a traffic accident and will at least have an MRI scan. As the woman is pushed past me, her eyes meet mine. Her eyes are wide with panic. I can feel naked fear and for a few moments I think I can feel her pain and fear. Seconds later, she is out of my field of vision. A shiver runs down my spine. Will she be paralyzed? Will I get out of here with my skin intact? My God, please let me out of here again. Please make sure I can walk again. Please let the pain stop. Please, my pleading thoughts roll over.

There is a terrible rumble as three men try to push the door to the emergency room shut again. “I’m telling you, I had the same injury. An iron girder fell on my feet. I was completely paralyzed but now I can walk again,” the loud, confident voice brings me out of my thoughts. “And should I inject them with the drug substitute?” the attending physician asks abruptly. “No, absolutely not. I don’t want a drug substitute,” I beg Tanja. The doctor accepts our will and nods. Then he injects me with another painkiller and something against the inflammation. The effect brings immediate relief.

“We’ll push her into the X-ray room now,” he decides. Two nurses wheel me along the endless corridors to another department. When they drive me into the room, Tanja has to wait outside. The stretcher now stands next to the X-ray table. I have no idea how I’m supposed to come up with that. Just the thought of moving my body even a millimeter makes me tense up. Before I can think any further, a large, friendly face leans over me. The man speaks no English, but his gestures are language enough. He tells me to hold on to his neck with my hands using sign language. I then embrace his strong neck. Suddenly I look into the man’s eyes, which are only a few centimeters from my face. The warmth they radiate immediately penetrates deep into my soul. My pain seems to evaporate completely for the moment. I feel like I’m floating on a cloud. Rarely in my life have I looked into such eyes. They act like a balm, like a balm, like a blessing. I would love to sink into them. Then two more hands slide under my legs and before I realize it the two angels have placed me on the X-ray table. Is it the medicine or was this man with the eyes an angel in human form after all? I lie on the cold table and think about what is happening to me. How lucky I have been so far and how often complete strangers have selflessly helped us. “We’re making a recording now,” I think I understand when a nurse speaks to me. Before I can ask for a leaden loincloth, the X-ray machine buzzes. The one time won’t make me infertile, I think as the nurse comes back. “The photos didn’t turn out. We have to shoot them again,” I understand minutes later. Tanja, who checks on my condition in the meantime and has made her way into the X-ray room, helps me to protect myself from the radiation this time.

“It looks like you’ve already had several minor fractures to your spine in your life,” says the doctor dryly as he studies the images. I wonder when I am supposed to have sustained these fractures? Either there are acute fractures or he sees things that cannot be seen. “At the moment, I don’t notice anything acute. I think you can continue your bike tour in a week or two,” I am pleased with his words, but don’t believe them. “Do you want to stay with us in hospital for that long?” “Absolutely not,” I decide spontaneously. “Then we’ll give you a prescription. Your wife should get the medication from the pharmacy. Where do you want the ambulance to take her?” “To the Hotel Orchideea,” answers Tanja.

An hour later, the ambulance stops in front of the hotel. Tanja asks if they can also accommodate an injured guest. Meanwhile, I lie in the hot car and enjoy the dullness of the pain. Apparently the doctor is right after all and we can continue our journey in two weeks, I think.

“We can check in and even get a special price,” Tanja delivers the good news. Because my pain is hiding behind the medication, I get a bit cocky and ask the emergency doctor: “Do you think I can go into the room by myself?” “There’s nothing against it. You’re welcome to try,” he encourages me, perhaps partly because I don’t want to have to drag the heavy man up to the second floor. I carefully rest my upper body on my elbows. Delighted with my success, I get into a sitting position. Then I let my legs dangle from the stretcher and as I’m about to put them out of the ambulance onto the street, it explodes in my back. “Aaahhh!”, I gasp and save myself on the bed, panting loudly. “It doesn’t work. No chance,” I whimper, horrified by the bitter setback. It was definitely a mistake to try walking because the agony has returned in full.

Two hotel employees, the driver and the emergency doctor are now dragging me through the hotel reception hall, groaning the stretcher up the narrow stairs and angling it into the hotel room. They lay me on the bed, exhausted. The emergency doctor gives us his cell phone number just in case. Then he wishes us good luck and says goodbye.

Because the air conditioning is totally undersized for the room, I’m sweating like a stallion. Tanja is on her way to get the tablets from the pharmacy. When she finally comes back, I’m just a heap of misery. The night turns into another nightmare. Sleep is out of the question again. “I no longer believe I can get better. I need professional help,” I complain at 3:00 in the morning. “The only chance I see is at the private clinic. They might be able to get you back to the point where we can take you home on a plane.” “Is there even a private clinic here?” “The emergency doctor mentioned it. It’s supposed to be very good but also very expensive. If it hasn’t improved by tomorrow morning, I’ll have you driven there,” Tanja decides, wiping her forehead.

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