WAITING GAME

Artwork at the Hospital

Life is a bit of a waiting game at the moment. The weather is rasping hot after quite a moderate early August and much more humid than any of us can remember. After getting the confirmation of the diagnosis that K’s prostate cancer had not spread to the bones or elsewhere, we breathed a sigh of relief for about 10 seconds until we contemplated an operation to remove the offending article and began to realise that we were not out of the woods yet.

Went to the beach early on Sunday before everyone else got there!

The 15^th August and the week or two following are the busiest time for Greek holidaymakers and the beaches are heaving. As it is so hot, K and I are resting during the heat of the day and getting up early for housework and going out at sunset to do the shopping. Driving through Panormo has been murder over this time with large coaches delivering batches of holiday makers to the huge palace (= Marble Butlins) all-in establishments where you could be anywhere in the world without getting to know about Crete or meeting the locals. The small access roads in and out of the village are constantly being jammed up and we have learned a lot of the back tracks here and there to avoid them. The sea which is usually clean and sparkling, has been none too clean this year either.

All our friends here in Crete and in the UK have been wonderful in their support and interest as K faces difficult times. Although there are treatments to deal with certain levels on the Gleason readings, the best option for K would be surgery – with all the added complications that this will entail. I am reading up and trying to be as conversant with this as I can because not all the medical professionals we have encountered speak English (which is unusual). We were given the options for treatment. Firstly, we were offered a robotic operation in an Athens clinic (the picture of the machine looked like a cross between a dalek and a bulbous space buggy) where the practitioner carried out the procedure from France or America via keyhole surgery and internet link. Call me old fashioned, but with the rate that our internet connection gets hiccoughs and the power supply cuts out, I just did not have any confidence in it. Neither would I feel capable of nursing Kimon for a week in Anna’s useful and handy, but not so airy or spacious flat in Athens on my own afterwards. Any complications would add 1,000 euros per day to the 8,500 euros cost for this treatment. As this looked very much like being a hostage to fortune, we declined. Thanks, but no thanks. Similarly, a private clinic in Chania could do it (conventional, not keyhole surgery) for 6,000 euros. So I looked the Urologist in the eye and asked him “If you were in this situation, what would you do?” He said that the Professor of Surgery worked at Heraklion University Hospital and with our IKA books, we could organise the surgery via the normal channels and get a good result. We made sure that we asked him whether each/any of the procedures would make any difference in terms of recovery and so on. He assured us that the prognosis for recovery would be the same in each case. The expensive, private option was for people to book a time and place at their convenience.

So we opted for Heraklion. Everyone says it is the best hospital in Crete and has good things to say about the professionalism of the staff there. If we are lucky, we may be able to get a room for me when I am not mopping a fevered brow, at a dedicated hostel, which has been gifted to the hospital by a grateful ship owner – so we are making investigations. It is Greek families who have to provide nursing care in Greek hospitals, so I will be busy.

Greek homework is giving me a few headaches!

The next hurdle was to telephone for an appointment, which involved a week of getting no answer at all. (We contacted the Urologist to check the number–“yes, right number but it is holiday time”)

We entered all the questions we needed to ask on Google Translate English to Greek and hoped it would make sense to the person at the other end as we read them phonetically.

On Monday, we called first thing. Got no answer again. Looked up the hospital on the Internet and phoned the Switchboard who gave us a different number. Phoned this, no answer. Phoned the original number several times and eventually spoke to the Surgeon. Scheduling operation no problem, but we needed call the hospital to make an appointment for a consultation. Phoned reception again, given another number, phoned this number given reception number again. Telephone tennis. After about 25 phone calls, got an appointment for a consultation with all the test results and scans (which K keeps in his own file) on 2^nd September. Exhausted!

Kimon felt as if he should have been given a gold medal for persistence! He is telling everyone that he would never have known about PSA tests from the UK. The Greek Doctor could not believe that all guys over 45 did not have the blood test as a matter of course each year – a very simple procedure which indicates a problem much earlier than symptoms do.

Parks are the shadiest places to be in August!

I still have to do battle with Easyjet since I can’t cancel the flight I had booked to the UK in September without surrendering all the money paid. Staysure Travel Insurance have never paid up on a claim yet - either emergency dental treatment in my first year or all the travel disruption in New Zealand at the beginning of this year which was genuine and out of my hands. My only hope is that a petition we signed to Easyjet to extend direct flights during the winter months MIGHT come to something. If there are flights in November, I might be able to reschedule my flight booked in September with only an administration fee to add. Customer Service seems to be in India and I am not very hopeful, but I will hang on to my booking until the last minute and see what flight schedules are available closer to the time and when we actually have a date for the operation.

Exhausted, slightly terrified but not daunted. We are not sure how we ever found time to go to work …. !

TESTING TIMES

In the shade of the trees near the hospital in Rethymnon on Tuesday

Today (Thursday 15 August) is the 'Dormition of the Mother of God' and the biggest summer festival in Crete for the Orthodox Church. It is the time (a bit like Thanksgiving in America or Christmas in the UK) when everyone goes home to spend time with family. So Athens empties and lots of families travel back to the islands or their villages for important church festival days and general feasting after a 15 day fast! The roads are all very busy and the shops have been selling cakes, sweets and fancy treats in preparation. Our village is FULL of people with shiny cars from Heraklion and Athens – and after the past few days, we will welcome the chance to stay at home in the cool of the house and not go anywhere.

We recovered from the dreaded prognosis of the Urologist last week and read as much as we could on line. A letter from England had the franked postmark for Prostate Cancer UK. With such a prompt and google to look it up on line, there was such a helpful pdf leaflet to download which was incredibly reassuring. We were therefore in better mental shape when K had his two scans this week. The first was at Rethymnon hospital and he turned up at the crack of dawn to get his numbered queuing ticket before the glass windows where outpatients need to jostle in their masses to get their books stamped. This accomplished, he made his way to the office of the CT Scanner and when I went to bring him some water and juice an hour or so later on, I noticed that the powers-that-be had put up new signage in Greek and English, so this hospital visit, I knew exactly where to go. He was in a queue behind the emergency admissions and had to wait an hour or two, but he got there in the end. The dye they used to show any metastases made him turn very hot from the inside out so we had to take it easy for the rest of the day and try to get the horrible stuff flushed out of his system as fast as possible. 

 I drove back from Rethymnon via the KOMBOS intersection – not quite as big as spaghetti junction but which has to be experienced before it can be explained properly. When it was first constructed it had traffic lights, but as everyone ignored them and chaos ensued, it was deemed preferable to dispense with them.  Now lines of cars from at least eight different roads take the rare step of slowing down and creeping slowly forward – never taking eyes off the road needed - unless something else is in the way which is when (and only then) you do have to stop. It seems that everyone creeping cautiously forward works for Cretan drivers who are macho warriors behind the wheel - even the girls! Every time I achieve a left turn on to the national road from Rethymnon to Skepasti, I have a ridiculous sense of escaping from the jaws of hell with awe and disbelief.

Village War Memorial at Achlade

Holiday madness on the roads meant that yesterday we went to Heraklion on the bus and took a taxi from the bus station to the Clinic for a bone scan. Kimon was injected with more stuff – to show up on the Xray – and had to go away for 3 hours and DRINK LOTS! As it was like a blast furnace in the centre of town, this didn't seem too difficult although I had to line up loads of bottles of water alongside beer so that whatever this horrible gunk was, it wouldn't stay too long in his system either. He is not allowed to get close to youngsters under the age of 13, pregnant ladies or babies – so we looked about carefully on the return bus home and are biding our time in the cool for the next day or two. We are mighty glad to get this over and done with. The city was so full of cars, buses, scooters,  people and so hot, hot, hot.  With a heady sense of relief, I stepped off the bus, my ankle flipped over and I went flying into the gravel by the side of the road. So now I am sitting with my feet up with a swollen ankle and a well scraped knee but the relief of being home is almost tangible and there is nothing so restorative as a cup of English tea.

Ian found a new village taverna not far away

We were introduced to a lovely village taverna last week and spent two very enjoyable evenings there chatting with our bubbly waitress Demetria, a student at the University of the Aegean during term time and daughter of the family who own it. We had wonderful mezethes on our first visit and a beautiful meal the second time. Alongside the nice food, it was delightful to watch all the children of the village play together around the taverna, school and local church. First of all, they all trooped by holding on to a length of rope in follow-my-leader style and disappeared for half an hour or so and we watched a game of hide and seek in progress. Then they all reappeared and played a game of skipping with the two rope ends stretched across the road and stopping to drop the rope and perform an excellent Mexican wave and a loud cheer every time a car passed. What fun! A bit later all of them – about 12 children aged 7-14 sat in the back of an open 4 x 4 truck and joked with each other. Finally, before it was time to go home, the owner of the truck took them all up the road 100 yards and back again laughing and singing all the way for a complimentary outing. It was great to see the children so happily playing together and created a lovely atmosphere all around us.

We do not get all K's results back until the end of the week and will need to speak to the Urologist to understand what the options will be. The man doing the Xray said that Kimon's bones looked good – which seemed like a positive indication, so we will see what the Specialist has to say in the next few days. A big thank you to all our friends who made contact and sent helpful information and encouragement. Kimon and I were touched the messages which came our way.

 

MP - OLLO - X!

The weather in Crete has been slightly cooler than usual for August which has made the last week or two wonderful for being out of doors – hot sunshine but a refreshing cool breeze. As we had rambling friends staying in the village, we had two early morning walks down to Skepasti Cove in the hope of a swim. The height of the cliffs and the hidden nature of the sea there means that you can never really know what the prospect for swimming is like until you arrive. The track leads uphill past farms and allotment type gardens which have appeared since the little stream alongside the path seems to have been blocked up to make a largish pond and more back filled growing area. The going is rough and very stony, so good walking shoes are best. At the head of the cliffs there are three hairpin bends in a very steep downhill track bulldozed through huge boulders to the cove where your leg muscles are screaming by the time you make it down to sea level. The waves were very rough and the undertow too strong to make getting out of the waves anything other than an undignified bottom shuffling effort whilst huge breakers crashed over your head. So I sat down on a large boulder and watched the crashing surf for a spell both times, deciding that I would err on the side of caution. We heard that two swimmers were swept out to sea and drowned this week in Rethymnon and we warn everyone of our visitors who enjoy swimming to be cautious.

K recovered from the biopsy well enough to join us for one of the walks but cried off for the second but he looked fine and we hoped that the results of the biopsy would all be a big mistake and someone noting down the figures had put the decimal point in the wrong place. We got a phone call from the Urologist on Thursday asking us to come to his office that evening. We said we couldn't make it until Friday but when we got there, the news wasn't what we hoped and there is prostate cancer to deal with. The Urologist and his English speaking assistant were wonderful and made appointments right away with Rethymnon hospital and a clinic in Heraklion the following week. We met up with Anna for a cafe frappé afterwards and bumped into my Italian friend Gianna from Greek classes in Rethymnon. We all sat under an umbrella and had some icy drinks and Gianna offered to drive us home, which was so nice and completely out of her way. We commiserated over Greek grammar (must get down to lots of homework today) and it swerved our minds off feeling morose for a while. Gianna has a bright yellow car and strode off walking very fast saying that she would meet us under that tree. When a yellow car sped down the hill and round the corner, we tried to open the doors while the alarmed male driver hooted at us. Whoops, wrong car!!! It made us all laugh when I explained to G.

We reserved getting angry, upset, sorry for ourselves until we got home and it seemed to help a lot to say “bollocks” at frequent intervals. 2013 hasn't been a great year. It could be a malapropism when my daughter called it an anus horriblis. She was right on both scores.

Our Cretan neighbours were good. We had decided not to keep it to ourselves but be completely open about the verdict (not sure this is how they would play it) and they all said “It's nothing”, “You'll be OK” and “What do Doctor's know anyway – they know nothing!” etc etc. In one way they are right because nobody has all the answers. Our English friends in the village had previously organised a barbecue which was a great way of not being at home and thinking too much. We admired their new inflatable spa and if we did not already have an inflatable kayak taking up a large part of upstairs, might have been tempted to buy one!

I am ashamed to say that I have a terrible headache this morning – not sure whether it was the chocolate cakes we bought at the confectioners or too much raki but I'm feeling a bit fragile. However, a bacon and egg sandwich and cup of black coffee has put me to rights this morning and we laughed about the Jobs To Do list. When I was at work, I used to use up stocks of scrap paper by cutting sheets of paper – printed on one side and no longer needed – into A5 size and printing them with a grid numbered 1-10 entitled Jobs To Do. Kimon, with tongue in cheek and a bit of dark humour, was mightily tickled by the idea of inventing a “Jobs To Forget About” list – it sounded very Mediterranean – and should perhaps simply say “Manyana” or This Week, Next Week, Sometime, Never to create a new form of prioritising. We had some lovely Emails and Skype calls from close family and friends with photos of littlies and know we have so much to be thankful for.

PROSTRATED POSTERIOR: TENSE

Sunset at Panormo

The title sounds like a new tense to learn for Greek Grammar, but not exactly ...

Our teacher at Greek School said that she would have to let us in to the building and lock the door behind us because all school caretakers in Greece have lost their jobs and she would need to come with us to let us out again and lock up behind us. I am not sure that, if I were a parent of school age children in Greece, I would be happy to let my children come to schools where there was no one available to sort out the plumbing, safety and cleanliness of the establishment, but anyway, it has happened. No state school in the country has a caretaker. Several thousand school teachers were dismissed at the same time. Harsh times, indeed and it makes me doubly grateful that our lessons have not been affected so far.  The intensive way of learning is slowly having an impact on my confidence to try and be a bit more conversational and not be totally tongue-tied. See-ga, see-ga, as they say. Slowly, slowly. 

Kostas, Ian, Kimon and Angelliki

The Urology Specialist had given us an A4 sheet of instructions in Greek to explain the procedure for K's prostate biopsy, which he had tried to explain, but as his Assistant was not there on the day, I handed the sheet to my Greek teacher after the class, just to be sure that we had not missed anything. She went through it – very kindly – and put us in the picture about not taking any medication which would thin the blood and what to expect afterwards. Unfortunately, the procedure was set for a Thursday which is main market day in the centre of Rethymnon, so we worked out that the best thing to do would be to get there by bus and Anna, Kimon's sister, offered to come and pick up us from the surgery when it had finished.

The swallows roost every night on the wires outside the Kafenion

On Tuesday, we had a telephone call from the Urology Doctor's assistant to go through the preparations for the biopsy, which was efficient (and un-heard of to us Brits). She spoke perfect English and this was reassuring. We had to get the prescription for a large dose of antibiotic which needed to be started that day and she wanted to be sure that we understood all the instructions. In the meantime, I had been boil washing and bleaching sheets and towels and stocking up on antiseptic wipes and bed pads along with supplies of drinking water and soft drinks, as we would be stuck in the house for a few days afterwards. We tried to pick up the antibiotic in Panormo but the Pharmacy there did not have it and we decided that the one opposite the Health Centre in Perama was probably the best place to start. After a nice conversation with the lady at the counter, we stopped for a cold drink at a shady cafe and met up with a French couple who had recently bought a house in Roumeli - 5 minutes away from our village by a nice new road. We had a hilarious half hour trying to talk Greek, French and English simultaneously and I told them about our Greek lessons.

Topped and tailed!

I threw away K's old sandals when he tripped over the
gatestep and cracked his head on the flower pot

When the dreaded day for the biopsy came, I packed a bag with a few medical necessities and we caught the bus into Rethymnon. It was heaving with tourists and we were too early. K found a shady seat under the tall trees in the municipal gardens – not allowed to eat or drink anything – so I just had a bottle of water after taking a quick spin round the fresh veggie stalls, the cages with rabbits and chickens (oooohh!) and cheap clothes and shoes but not able to buy anything because all our money had been put aside for the Urologist. I had 20 minutes until we were due at the Surgery. All medical offices in Crete are spotlessly clean and seem to be equipped with the latest high tech gadgetry in the surgeries. Most Doctors seem to have their own ultrasound equipment, for instance. It is hard to equate the sophistication of the town livers with the simplicity of the villagers, but we are grateful for it. I settled down in one of the lovely comfortable leather sofas and, half watching the Greek TV which was on in the corner, got out my Kindle for a bit of a read. I kept checking the time; Anna phoned and asked what was happening as she had been in the car park waiting for our call for 45 minutes and was reading her Kindle, but still no sign of K. After an hour, the Specialist emerged and invited me into the inner office. He showed me two pots of fluid with stuff in them. I was not sure that I really wanted to see them or what the blobs and specks signified exactly, but anyway, it was over and K was in the surgery still hooked up to heart monitors and cannulas looking a bit groggy.

Thankfully K was first, but there were three more people after him for treatment and I am glad that we did not have to see anyone else emerge after an hour and recover in the (by now rather full) waiting room. It would have put anyone off! However, after they had checked him out for a spell and the dizziness had passed, we were allowed to leave. We only had to wait in the shade for a minute or two before K's sister arrived in her car and we were able to cover her seats with the necessary padding and get home for a cool, relaxing (non- alcoholic) thirst quencher.

A light diet and not allowed to do anything for 3 days (him, not me!)

Apologies from the Croziers that the photo content seems at variance with the subject matter, but for this you will be relieved.  Anyway, so far, so good. Temperature (taken every 4-5 hours) is normal. Patient is sleeping lots and all the doctor's directions and instructions on the A4 sheet have been very welcome.   The Specialist will call us with the results in seven days.