Regensblog

It’s good to be home. Sarah photographically documented these aspects of the “ordeal” (I’m being dramatic here; it was not as big a deal as I make it seem). I was initially glad we went with the Evangelisches Krankenhaus due to their proximity to our house. But after all is said and done, I’m glad to have had such a “personalized” experience. Choosing a smaller hospital definitely felt like the right choice, because I met with the surgeons* before and every day after the procedure and had direct line of communication to them via the nurses on my floor.

Surgery is not something you do for fun, but the especially the nurses in the surgery department did their best to ensure a speedy and comfortable recovery, and being home a whole day earlier than expected is proof enough for me.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: my out-of-pocket costs are 10€ per day for a hospital stay, for up to 28 days per year. I don’t know what the co-pays would have been under my HMO back in Michigan, but I wager they’d have been higher. This health care system is getting high marks in my book.

I’m thinking some day when Sarah’s out getting her voice lesson on or otherwise occupied, I’ll invite Tammy over or bring my “eggs” over to her and we’ll extract them out of their Evil Sauce and do a proper dissection.

Hey y’all — they let me out a full day early!

Fun hospital pics Sarah snapped of me while still in the big white house at the end of the street are to follow shortly.

Sorry to all those who eagerly awaited photos of my altered skin tone. I can still see some yellowness in my eyes, but just a little and my face looks a lot less yellow to me now — especially when compared to my shoulders and arms and chest. Those areas are still kind of yellow, but I expect the jaundice will fade from the top down, just like it arrived. My doctor* and I are guessing that there was a small stone (like in the 1mm ballpark) in a bile duct somewhere which was impeding outbound bile traffic. I visited him yesterday for the first time and we drew some blood and I’m expecting results back today; I am hopeful they’ll (help) confirm that my gall bladder removal surgery scheduled for Monday the 12th doesn’t need to be expedited, and that it’ll be a simple laparoscopic procedure.

This is not the only clue I have had that things are working (more) properly again; last night my team members from Iasi, Romania, who are in town visiting, and Sarah and I visited the Fürstliches Brauhaus for dinner. I was actually hungry and ate well. There are some other indications I would be happy to describe at length with you, but I suspect the pleasure of such an description would be all mine. Trust me.

…but it’s really the stones in my gallbladder that have been making themselves known lately. I’d love to post my ultrasound pictures from the examination today (starting with an episode last night, an overnight stay in the hospital down the street from us, and heckuva lot of waiting around there between bloodwork and EKG and ultrasound results), but the hospital is still processing my paperwork (I can go pick up my discharge papers in about an hour).

So that’s what’s been keeping me up at night a few times per year for the last few years! It’s nice to know what was causing that; I just wish the timing for surgery options could be better, given work stress and upcoming travel.

So, my fellow consumers of the German state-sponsored health-care program, my questions to you are:

- Have you undergone any surgical procedures here in Germany? Got horror stories? Success stories? Artifacts*?
- What about copays — especially for those of you on a state-run plan like mine?
- How did your overal surgery experience compare with a similar one in other countries?

The mixed blessing here of course is that it’s not a surgery that has to happen this week, but if I am going to do this laparoscopically (if that’s even an option), I’ve got to shake a leg before we head off to Mexico and the U.S. at the end of the next month. If not, and this turns into a standard “open” Cholecystectomy, then I’ve got to hold out until the end of December at least, because I just can’t do a 6-8 week recovery period before then.