Health and Safety

When we decided to spend as much time as possible in Greece, one of our location criteria was to be near a hospital. Whilst Waldo is rarely ill and has only been hospitalised once in his life, he says one never knows what is around the corner. In contrast, I have been a creaking door for as long as I can remember. A car accident left me with faulty knee caps; the damage was so extensive that the first surgeon I went to see told me that there was nothing he could do for me, I would be in a wheelchair within about 2 years and that would be where the rest of my life would centre. I was not then thirty and decided that this was not an option. We found another orthopaedic surgeon who told me that the only thing he could do was to put me in a plaster cast from waist to ankles for about a year. Then after that time he thought there might be a chance of me walking again possibly for 2 -3 years, but then most likely I would be in a wheelchair. Despair was now setting in and I was still in pain, but still working.

Eventually, through the Medical Director of the pharmaceutical company I then worked for, he suggested I try a new, young surgeon who had recently moved to Cardiff. It turned out that this dashing young man had been making a name for himself working in Northern Ireland where ‘the troubles’ were alive and kicking. One of the favourite physical traumas played out at that time was knee-capping, where some poor soul’s knees were smashed to pieces. ‘My surgeon’ as I came to refer to him, studied the X-rays, poked and squeezed my knees and eventually came to a conclusion. He felt that he could operate and that there would be a ten percent chance of me walking again as normal. But if anything went wrong, there would not be a half way house, I would be in a wheelchair for life. He was convinced that he could do the operation, but he cautioned that success very much depended upon my ability to follow a rigorous physiotherapy course for months after. The first operations, one on each knee, resulted in two weeks in hospital, followed by six weeks in plaster cast, followed by a further two weeks in hospital for the second operation and then some six months learning to walk again. I am ¾ inch shorter than I was prior to the operations, have had a further 8 operations just to go in and sweep up shards of broken bone as they move, bump and grate around the kneecap. But now, over thirty years later, I walk, do stairs up and down, drive a car and few people would recognise that I had any problem. I still do the physiotherapy exercises most mornings before I can get out of bed, but hey ho, that is no sacrifice. I cherish the life that I can walk. Such is the confidence in my aging knees that Kalithea Villa has some 15 steps from our front door to the lounge, a further 6 from lounge to kitchen!

I was definitely a ‘made on a Friday’ for my health needs quite a bit of support. Apart from being overweight – I do eat very little honest! – I have my mother’s family feet. This means in growing toenails, hard skin, odd sizes and an impossibility to get really well fitting shoes. I have developed really amazing allergies, those really nasty ones which result in anaphylactic reactions! Mild reactions occur to penicillin and zinc oxide plaster, which is not used any more thankfully. Picking up a rubber band or even touching paper printed with certain inks, photocopy inks are worst, sets off my latex allergy and the itching is such I could tear my skin off. But the scary ones are an allergy to all known painkillers, including morphine; aspirin, paracetamol, brufen, no such product can pass my lips. But thankfully I rarely suffer from headaches and over the years of operations to knees, neck, spine, wrist, I have developed a powerful means of self hypnosis, which for the most part sorts me out.

Thus we were very pleased to learn that there is a small hospital on the island. Little did we expect Waldo to use its facilities not once, but twice! The first time was very early on. A friend was staying with use, helping to wash curtains, make new curtains and generally advise me on anything related to sewing. She is also a midwife! Waldo had taken ownership of Kalithea Villa in the September and Jan and I came out to join him in October. Our rough track up the mountain was in a bad way and I had not attempted to drive our old 4 x 4 Lada up or down it. Jan and Waldo had spent most of the day taking down curtains and then washing them by treading them in the bath! I managed the drying, moving them around different patios to keep in the sun. I was also making some spaghetti bolognaise and salads as we were having friends to visit that evening. The three of us had had a coffee break and then Waldo decided to just go and hang the last curtain in his office-come-spare-bedroom. I had picked a few olives earlier in the day and was about to start the pickling process, just to see how they would turn out. I was chatting to Jan in the kitchen when we heard an almighty crash and a moan of a seriously wounded animal. To this day I have never found the bowl of olives that were in my hand! I ran to the garage, thinking Waldo was there, but Jan was ahead of me and went to Waldo’s office. As I returned to the lounge I saw him come through the archway between the two rooms. His face was covered with blood, it was dripping from his mouth and one ear, his hand was clenched to his chest and the hand was covered in blood. Jan ran past me as I ran towards Waldo. I was convinced that he had fallen off the ladder and something had pieced his chest, there was so much blood seemingly coming from there. I perched him on the wide arm of a chair and tried to look. He was holding his hand so close to his chest; I could hardly prize it away. I thought he was trying to save me from the gory sight and struggled to get his hand out of the way, whilst mentally steeling myself for the sight that was to come. I was shocked when I eventually looked – there was nothing! ‘Oh well, he’s OK’ I thought. I had been so worked up to seeing this gory sight that when it wasn’t there I momentarily relaxed. By this time Jan had reached us with a few damp tea towels and started to stem the various flows of blood. Slowly as she worked away we could see that the blood was coming mainly from a deep gash over his eye which dissected his eyebrow; this was going to need stitches. Fortunately it was blood from this wound that had reached his ear and once cleaned that looked fine. The biggest problem was his lips which had been bitten through by his own teeth, the bottom lip had about half an inch hanging down whilst the top lip had a nasty gash up and along for about two inches.

There was no way an ambulance could get up our road. So Jan and I helped Waldo to the Lada and she sat in the back holding various towels to his head. Her midwifery skills at least enabled her to deal with blood and patients. I was glad I had the driving job. I gingerly turned the engine on and prepared myself for the drive. We made it to the hospital in record time. The duty doctor soon cleaned Waldo up, stitched his gash over his eye and his lips. Then, after checking him over he decided that Waldo was to be admitted. He was to be on 15 minute observations throughout the night. I eventually managed to understand that the doctor was concerned in case Waldo spleen had been damaged or might burst; this was serious.

A male nurse came to admit Waldo. I explained that I would go back to the house to get his pyjamas, a towel and all the usual paraphernalia needed in hospital. But the nurse was adamant; he would find some pyjamas and towels which would be fine. Indeed he found a pair of wonderful navy blue pyjamas which were in some sort of satin material and had a sort of yellow braiding around the edges. They were certainly much posher than any Waldo owned. They were spotlessly clean and ironed, but it did cross my mind as to which wealthy old Kytherian had passed on and left them behind. The nurse shoed us out of the ward; he would dress Waldo and get him into bed. We took the chance to telephone our friends and explain that spag bol that night was ‘off’! They immediately said they would come to the hospital.

The ward was a six bedded ward, but there was only one other person, an old man who looked to be very ill indeed. A woman sat and held vigil by his bedside. By the time we went back to see Waldo, I could see that he was getting very tired. His breathing was better and he was less panicky than he had been. It was a bad fall and a shock to him. Our friends soon arrived, but could see Waldo really didn’t want visitors. None of the night staff in the hospital spoke English, but we knew they would take care of Waldo. We left him to sleep.

I certainly didn’t feel like going out to eat and so we left out understanding friends to fend for themselves. It had been raining whilst we were in the hospital and I was concerned about the road. The water had turned the dust to a glue-like mud and as I turned the corner to face the worst bit, I groaned inwardly. I knew Jan was quite scared and didn’t want her to feel any worse. I told her to hold on to the handle in the roof, as I needed a bit of speed to get to the top. The Lada was fantastic; I’m sure it would go up the side of a cliff face if only I could dare drive it up one. We bounced a bit, but no slippage. We reached the house safely. I was in a dream as I finished making the bolognaise sauce. I boiled a little pasta and we ate mostly in silence; but no doubt dealing with our own demons.

Waldo was much better the next day when we went to visit. The doctor was pleased with him and had reduced him to one hourly observations. The three broken ribs were now the most painful. The bruising on his face had come out and it was also clear that he would need some radical dental treatment as three teeth were poking under his lip at very strange angles. I took him his own pyjamas, a towel and his wash kit. It was warm in the ward and the windows at the end of the room were wide open to let in as much cool breeze as possible. They also let in flies, no doubt attracted to the various sweet smells of the various potions and salves that were used. The lady visiting the bed opposite was well prepared. Her husband, or maybe it was her father, had obviously been there for a long time. As he slept she swotted away, giving some really hard sounding thwacks on the sleeping man. She was clearly an expert in this field for the frequently caught two flies at once. Waldo as a keen novice fly swatter was really impressed. Her actions kept him occupied for long hours when we weren’t there.

It took just until our second visit when Waldo had become thoroughly institutionalised they way people do when in hospital. That ward became his world and nothing else mattered. He reported activity. There seemed no move to consider when Waldo would be leaving, and for the moment that was fine: we had a almost a week before we were due to fly back to the UK. The visiting lady had two triumphs and twice swatted three flies. Such was her excitement that she woke the sick patient up to tell him, but he hardly cared. She then told Waldo; well she mainly mimed the re-enaction, and then volunteered to have a go around Waldo’s bed. She did very well until a fly landed on the bedcovers above his ribs. The wail that came from him sent her scurrying back to her side of the ward with the speed of an Olympic runner.

Waldo was hungry. He craved for some of Stella’s cheese pies. Stella ran her own tavern on the front in Aghia Pelagia. Her cooking is excellent and it is now a ritual that the first and last night’s of our trips are always spent in Stella’s, also the first night out when any visitors arrive we take them to Stella’s. In fact we go in between times as well. I called in to ask if I could take out some cheese pies for Waldo. She had already heard by the village grapevine that he was in hospital. She was delighted and slightly amused that it was her cooking Waldo craved, not mine. But she packed up a small box of pies, refused to take any money for them, and insisted they were a gift to the patient. She and her husband impressed upon me that if there was anything they could do, anything we wanted, we only had to ask. In fact it was incredible the number of people who stopped me in the street or telephoned to ask how Waldo was and if there was anything they could do. The response was amazing. People didn’t visit him in hospital because they thought it might be an intrusion, but they made it clear that if I wanted help with the translation, administration, paperwork etc. they would be there for us. We were both really touched by the kindness of friends and strangers.

Sometime during the evening a third patient joined Waldo in the ward. He was given a bed at the far end of the room, by the window. Waldo did not know what was wrong with him, but like all the patients in the ward as soon as he was in bed, a saline drip was fitted to his hand. Waldo was still not allowed out of bed or even to sit up because of the ongoing concern about his spleen. But this man was free to get in and out of bed as he wished. He spent a lot of time just staring at Waldo; whether it was his long beard, the changing colours of his swollen face, or just the fact that he was a ‘xenoi’ ( stranger ) Waldo wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t sure whether the man had a bladder problem or whether it was just an excuse to walk past and get a better view, but every hour or so he would make his way to the men’s toilet next door. Now Waldo is not a tall man, but this inquisitive fellow was really height disadvantaged. Getting off the bed meant first standing on the bed to unloop the saline drip bottle fixed by a tab hooked over a large in the wall – drips on poles on wheel have not reached the island yet! He then had to turn around so that he faced the bed and let his legs dangle over the side. Holding his bottle in the same arm as he had the needle, he used his other arm to hold his weight so that he could drop down to the floor. Once his feet landed on the floor he would pad his way across the ward, still holding his saline bottle as high as he could. He had been told to do this by the nurse, but nobody had explained to him that it was to keep the bottle higher than his needle and so he kept the bottle tightly clenched next to the needle! Waldo could then hear a sound like someone jumping and occasionally huffing, puffing and swearing: the tone recognisable in any language. After a short time this would be repeated, but then end up with a repeat cry of a word Waldo did not understand. It was only the next day, when Waldo was allowed to go to the toilet himself that he found out what was happening. This short man would open the toilet door, and by jumping and flicking the saline bottle he could eventually hook the tag over a six inch nail fitted in the door, presumably for just that purpose. Nine times out of ten, the tag would slip down as the nail had been banged in at a 45° upward angle. After the man had done what he came to do, no amount of jumping could enable him to have the height now to lift the tag up and over the nail head. Waldo did it a few times for him, but he discovered that when he wasn't available, the cry was for the nurse to come and unhook the little guy and give him his freedom to climb back into bed and once more flick the tag over his own nail.

The exercise of moving under the fly swatter and getting up to unhook his fellow inmate, soon enabled Waldo to move around a bit more easily. Then of course, all he wanted to do was come out, but the doctor was adamant. Eventually Waldo insisted, that he had to go back to the UK. He was told he could not fly. Whilst Jan and I started considering the cost of changing tickets, Waldo thought none of it. He simply persisted and then forced the doctor’s hand saying he would catch the ferry to Athens, go to hospital in Athens and wait for the ‘all clear’. We collected Waldo the day before our departure flight. Of course we forgot about the smallness of the island for that afternoon, whilst doing some last minute shopping who did I bump into but the doctor.
‘I thought you were going on the ferry today?’ he asked.
Of course the one ferry a week to Piraeus left the island a few hours ago. I mumbled something about the fact that I was flying tomorrow. Hoping he would infer that Waldo had gone on the ferry.

The next day we ducked down in the taxi as we passed the doctor’s house and the hospital. We flew to Athens and then on to Heathrow. I drove back to Cardiff. Waldo’s main problem was his sore ribs. But happy to say that his spleen did not burst, his stitches were taken out and hardly show, his bruises faded, teeth were sorted and his ribs finally stopped hurting. I bought him a new step ladder for his birthday!