Just When I Thought I'd Experienced It All

Just when I thought that Ukraine couldn’t throw any more surprises, it goes and gives me a taste of the Ukrainian hospitals. Last week I experienced stomach pains like I had never felt before. After about 5 days of thinking that it would just go away, I was finally convinced to call the Peace Corps doctor. The doctor I talked to was concerned that I had appendicitis, so she told Luba, my Ukrainian counterpart, to take me to the hospital in Berydchiv to see a doctor there and determine whether it was appendicitis or not. So, we walked to the polyclinic, which is the outpatient part of the hospital. Before I begin the adventures within the hospital, let me describe how the hospital is set up. Basically, there are 5 buildings, including one new women’s center. The polyclinic is probably one of the oldest buildings, and therefore makes the least about of sense. The rooms that should be next to each other (for example, the blood analysis room and the urinalysis room) are floors apart on opposite sides of the building. And, as you may have noticed already, each analysis has its own room. I’m guessing that’s so they can employ more people, but who knows.

But I digress. So, we are at the polyclinic, and I’m following Luba around while she’s asking where the correct doctor is. We finally see the doctor, who says that it’s not appendicitis. Whew. But he tells the Peace Corps doctor that he wants to do blood and urine tests to make sure that everything else is okay, and since it’s all for free (because I’m an American and everyone wanted to make a good impression, I wasn’t charged for any of the lab tests or consultation), Peace Corps said okay. So, I followed Luba not to the blood lab but to the pharmacy on the first floor. Why, you ask? Well, to buy alcohol swabs, rubber gloves for the technician and the little razor thing that pricks my finger, of course! All of this came to about 1 hyrvna, which is about 12 cents, but I thought it was odd that I had to buy all that stuff. Then I realized that the reason I had to buy it is so that I know that it’s clean and sanitary. So, I was a little reassured. After buying all these supplies, we walk to the 2nd floor and I swear I felt like I had entered the 1940’s. All the technicians were wearing white, and each technician had a table with glass viles on them (for the blood). This 19 year old comes up to me to take my blood, so I sit down. She puts on the gloves, wipes my finger, and sticks it, and then realizes that she doesn’t have any cotton, so she leaves me sitting there with a bleeding finger while she goes to find cotton. When she finally comes back with cotton, she takes a long tube (longer than the ones that they use in the States), and puts the end on my finger to suck up the blood, turns to an empty vile, puts her mouth on the tops side of the tubs, and blows to get the blood from the tube into the vile (kinda like howyou spit soda through a straw- it’s the same idea). She does this twice. Then puts a Band-Aide (which I had bought) on the finger. Luba then informs me it’s time to go pee.

In order to pee into a cup, we have to walk up 2 flights or stairs and go to the other side of the clinic. We enter this little room, where Luba asks where the cups are. The woman says, “they’re right behind you”. I turn around and what do I see? MASON JARS!! Of course they would use mason jars. So, I take one, and ask where the bathroom was. She responds that it’s on the other side of the floor, because why would it be logicial to have the urinalysis room next to a bathroom? I walk to the bathroom with my mason jar and it’s one of the dirtiest bathrooms I’ve seen in a while. There’s not toilet paper, there’s no soap, so I’m left to my own devices. Afterwards, I walk with my pee-filled mason jar down the hall in front of all these people who are waiting to see a doctor, and give it to the lady.

After a lot of analysis, the doctor says that it’s not a stomach problem, it’s a “woman problem”. Of course the guy would think that. Although I knew it wasn’t. So I had to go see the gyno too, which was a whole other experience, but I don’t really feel comfortable telling that part of the story here.

Luckily, everything’s okay. I had to spend a night in the Peace Corps office and have an ultrasound. Everything looks a-okay, and they think that I was just having intestinal spasms, so now I’m on a bunch of meds and am feeling SO much better! AND, I got a good story out of it!