Hospital visit #2

Yes, we have made our 2nd trip already to the Hungarian hospital. This time it was me...
Last Wed. March 25th I woke up around 3am in excruciating pain...I thought I had a stomach ache from something I ate but it definitely felt different than just a stomach-ache. I went in and out of sleep until about 6am when the pain started again...I dealt with it the whole day, thinking it was food poisoning and I was just going to have to suck it up and wait 24-48 hours for it to pass. As the day went on it seemed to let up some so I ate some toast for dinner, not 30min. went by when the pain started again and I could not find any relief. We called friends and headed to the hospital Wed. night. We still do not have a vehicle so Paul drove us and Lilli came to translate.

When Eden burned her hands we took her to the Nagykata Clinic, this time we went to the Jaszberny Hospital. One town farther. I almost passed out on the very bumpy car ride over...

We get to the hospital and are greeted by a nurse smoking a cigarette in the Main foyer of the building...not outside. She starts asking me routine questions in between puffs and blows, so we are not seated or shown into the lobby but are "hanging" out with the smoking nurse answering questions about our passports and my pain. Another nurse shows up and escorts me into a small room where I am to have a EKG...not sure why, but it's routine in Hungary. So I am in pain, getting an EKG for my heart while it's my side that hurts. They are talking a mile a minute but we have no clue what they are saying, for all I know they could have been discussing the latest soccer game.

2 Doctors examine me and decide I need to have an ultrasound to check my appendix, since the greater pain was on my right side. So, I am told we are going to the next building over...ok, no problem. Except that the other building means I am to be wheeled outside in the freezing cold weather! Mind you,it's about midnight now. Praise the Lord they gave me my shirt and clothes back...

Side note:Awhile back we were having a conversation with a young girl her on staff who is pregnant about hospitals here in Hungary. She informed us that when you go into the hospital to deliver a baby you need to ring everything, and I mean EVERYTHING with you. Let me give you some examples...you have to provide your own sheet, pillow, blanket, fork,knife, spoon, cup, paper towels, bath towel, washcloth, TOILET PAPER, soap, and pain medicine (like Tylenol)...just to name a few things.

So the Lord new I would need to have that conversations, so before we headed to the hospital we grabbed tp, blankets etc etc.

Now back to my adventure being transferred to the "other" building by way of across the parking lot; I had my blanket so I didn't freeze on the way over. Forgot to tell you I was given an IV on the top of my arm not in the fold of your arm but closer to my elbow so my right arm is immobilized at this point and bleeding, never seen an IV wound bleed like that. Well, we make it to the other building and by this point whatever they gave me in the IV is kicking in so my nervous laughing has kicked in and I'm trying not to lose my cool. When I'm really, REALLY nervous I laugh or talk like a freakin' hyena a mile a minute. Anyways I go in for an ultrasound and they find kidney stones but no sign that they are trying to pass of have passed, My gallbladder and appendix are fine. So they are perplexed and have an x-ray done to double check.

So while the doctor is reviewing the x-ray I am taken back across the parking lot, through the freezing cold down the women's corridor to my room, which I will be sharing with an older women who is very sick. I asked, trying not to sound like a spoiled ungrateful American, "is she contagious". No answer... but I assume no, our translater informed me that they keep related illnesses together. The big blessing at this point is that Andy was allowed to stay in the room with me which is against hospital rules no men in women's rooms or vice versa except during set visitor's hours. Lilli also stayed to continue translating for us. I was given unknown medicine all through the night...

It's customary for all patients no matter what the illness or injury to stay over night to be observed. So we stayed over-night waiting until morning to hear the diagnosis: Kidney stones!

They came in about 5:30am the next morning to take my temperature and give me the diagnosis and treatment steps. I am to drink lots of water and walk on my heels? and try to go down steps...hmmm not exactly sure how to do that, but that was the end result of my visit. I walked out extremely sore and exhausted toting my blanket and roll of TP.

All is well now. I felt like a rag all through the wknd, but my energy returned full blast last Mon. My mind is now alert enough to write about our experience. It was a doozy.

I have no symptoms of passing any stones except the pain in the hospital, so in a couple months if there are no more "episodes" I will go in and see if they have passed just to double check.

Praise the Lord we are all well and healthy now!

Our little Puddle Duck

My Little Puddle Duck

The snow has melted and spring is peeking it's beautiful head around the corner and we are anxiously awaiting the day we can peel our coats. With the snow melting came an abundance of puddles. We woke up this morning to the sun! Yes, it does shine in Hungary, contrary to my personal experience. But it was here and we had to get out. Cabin fever has taken it's toll and we spent the entire day (apart from naps and diaper changes) outside and it was wonderful! Novalie discovered puddles! It was such a joy to see her face as she crouched at the first puddle and dipped her little finger into it and laughed! Puddles, Puddles, Puddles! To dance, jump, and skip through. So we headed through town and Novie wanted to try out every single one. Needless to say by time we made it across the road she was soaking wet, muddy from head to toe and extremely excited about her new discovery. We greatly enjoyed our day out and are drying out our boots to play tomorrow.

Update on Eden's hands...

Thank you for your prayers concerning Eden's hands. It's amazing how quickly babies heal. It's been one week today and there have been major improvements every day. She ended up having 2-3 layers of blisters and they are in the final stages. You would have never known her right hand was burned. Her left one is still pink and a little tender. We think within a few weeks there will not be any signs of the accident and no scarring.

Her left hand 6 days later

Our first Hungarian ER visit

Eden...our curious little baby. Mommy was preparing dinner and had just put it into the oven when little Eden came crawling into the kitchen. Now for some reason our oven when it's, "on" the oven light automatically turns on, there is no way to turn the light off.
So there was dinner in all it's "glory" just in view of Eden's crawling height. She saw the light on and wanted a closer look so she grabbed the oven to pull herself up and started screaming in a horrible bloody-murder type way. I picked her up and instantly saw the flesh peeling off of her hands!

Now in the good ol' US of A you CAN grab the outside or the oven and it will not scorched the life out of your hands...Not in Hungary! The outside is only a piece of see-through glass, offering no insulation (which I think will be bad for our electric bill!) So the outside gets just as hot as the inside!! the glass was about 350 degrees! Little Eden's hands were on the glass for a mere 2 seconds but by the looks of her hands you would think much longer!

We called our closest friends here in Hungary who have 3 children of there own, (good thing we had a phone, last week we didn't! which means Andy would have been taking a 10min. run in the snow to their house!) and they immediately rushed over while calling the ER and local doctor. We packed up Novie and Eden shoved them in the car with a screaming Eden wrapped in a blanket.
We dropped Novie off and rushed to Nagykata one town over. Now this is the amazing part, (yes, there is an amazing part), we got to the ER rushed her right into a room where the doctor was waiting to see her! He examined her without waking her up, talked through the diagnosis 1st degree burns on the right hand 2nd degree on the left, told us how to treat them, what to watch out for, when to contact the pediatrician, how to use the medicine and how often, wrote a prescription, and sent us off all in 15min! Now if we were in American we would still be in the line for registration!!

7 of her fingertips are fried with blisters and the left palm got the deepest burn resulting in numerous layers of blisters. Several have popped to reveal new ones and pink tender skin. We are watching them closing for infection and bleeding. She is crawling around like nothing is wrong and taking her treatments and cleanings like a champ. The left hand is gauzed up during the day to keep fuzz from the carpet and dirt from the floor out of the sticking tender new skin.

Hopefully by the end of the week there will be a big improvement.

Also, we went to the 24 hour pharmacy and got our prescription in about 10min. we didn't have to feel out any paperwork at the hospital or pharmacy...AMAZING, we did all of that in about an hour.

Recent pics of the girls

Novalie wasn't so sure about having to bundle up everyday to play outside. She is used to it now and even knows how to put her gloves and boots on the right hands and feet!

Here is Eden standing up on her own. She can walk along the couch and will even let go with one hand. She is trying to catch up to her sister. She has been crawling for a couple months now, is working on her third tooth, she chews on everything and loves Novalie's Elmo dolls. Happy 8 months Eden!





Here is Eden in the laundry detergent box. She thinks its so much fun and Novie will push her around the living room.






Novalie has been asking for snow every day and finally got it! It snowed today and Novie witnessed her first snowfall.

She loves her scarf that Nana made for her.










The girls are doing great in their new home and are adjusting well.
Here is their new address:

Novalie and Eden Mater
WOL Elat Szava
To'almas
Kokai u.2
2252
Hungary

Hungary here we are!

Yes, we've made it to Hungary and we have actually been here almost 2 weeks!

Just to recap the trip:
We left Tampa International Tues. Jan 20th around 5:30pm (we thought the irony of the day was hilarious to be leaving the States) and headed to Tennessee where we boarded a half empty plane to Amsterdam. We went through customs in Amsterdam(which was easier than customs from Canada to the US boarders) and then flew into Budapest, Hungary.
Novalie and Eden slept 8 of the 9 hour flight over. Novie actually had a whole row to herself and only fell off once :) No turbulence the whole trip and no motion sickness or crying spells from the girls, the trip was as close to ideal as we could possibly wish for, now for dragging two kids plus 4 carry-on's, 4 personal items, double stroller, two carseats, diaper bags, toys, 2 laptops, 4 winter coats plus ourselves and what was left of our sanity through 3 airports is a whole other post of whining which I will save for later.... :) Anyways we made it through our flights and through customs with no major drama. We arrived in Hungary Wed. afternoon, tired, jet-lagged and lost. No one in the Budapest airport spoke English including the gentleman from WOL who picked us up. We came with 10 suitcases/bins plus everything I mentioned above and had no clue how to get it out of the airport! It took about 30min. for us to find someone who understood enough English to find us a porter and point us to the exit of the airport so we could find our ride "home" it was not quite the welcome I was expecting...but I also knew there would be no parade or balloons waiting for us either :) We paid the porters in US currency which seemed to bring a BIG smile to their faces (later we found out we paid them alot and the exchange rate is currently the highest Hungary has seen in about 40 years). So we found our ride, he was holding the WOL shield :)
Now I will try to tell you about our first week but truthfully it was extremely surreal. We were majorly jet-lagged (which means you are so tired you forget to do normal things like put on your deodrant and eat) and trying to remember everything our new WOL family was telling us about our new house. They could have told me it was infested with snakes or didn't have running water and I probably would have smiled and said, "Okay, sounds good." Needless to say we dropped our bags took a quick peek around our new home and dropped into a deep "Sleeping Beauty", passed-out, sort-of nap.

Here is our new kitchen, the biggest one I've ever had!
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So, our new house is NOT infested with snakes and we have running water!! Of course! we are in Europe! not a 3rd world country :) Our new home is beautiful! All linoleum hard wood flooring in the rooms and tiles in the kitchen and bathroom (real tile) :). The house is cozy, warm and has alot of windows to let the winter "sun" in which deceives us into thinking it's warmer outside than it really is.
It's 2 bedrooms with high ceiling s and alot of space. Here is a strange Hungarian fact for you: if you say a house is 3 rooms that literally means 3 rooms. So we found out that our house is actually a 3 room house, it includes all rooms you live in, which of course would include the Living Room :) Also a closet is considered a room! No matter how small or large the closet is it's counted as a room, so we still only have a 3 room house...we have NO closets! Kinda strange and different but we have Wardrobes coming this week. I know I will step into each one and see if Narnia and Aslan are in the either side, I'll let you know what happens :)

Our yard is amazing and I can only dream and imagine what it must look like in the spring. I think I'll have my hands very full with the upkeep of all the veggies, fruit, nuts, plants and flowers. I will feel like Mary in the Secret Garden. I've been told I'll have help and I've been reading up online how to prune the grape vines :) Now I just need to learn how to can all the grapes, raspberries and veggies so we have them all year around. We also have a wine cellar but I have a feeling it will be used for storage ;)


The Wine Cellar

The village we live in To'almas is a very safe town to live in. I can walk around with the girls and not worry about being attacked, at least by humans, there are scary, stray dogs everywhere. I was told to fill my pockets with rocks, I guess that's supposed to scare a ravaging beast...
We can walk to the pedatrician, Doctor, Meat Market, The Castle, WOL property, 3 different stores, post office, ATM, pretty much everything we need is within a 10-20min walking distance, even the ice cream shop :)

We've made several shopping trips so far and finally got a microwave! Boy was that tricky heating up baby food, bottles and food...doable but tricky. I praise the Lord for our microwave!
I think in the days ahead I will have more time to blog, life inTo'almas seems to be pretty laid back and slower paced than the States.
I also learned that is costs between $300-$400 dollars for a Hungarian to get their drivers license! Yikes! Now I know why they walk or ride bikes everywhere!

More to come later....time to sweep and mop, which is a daily task with no carpet and muddy roads.

Bound for Hungary, the journey begins...

Most of you know the journey we began 2 years ago...Raising support for Hungary.

We got an amazing phone call last Monday night around 9:30pm. "You are leaving for Hungary" rang in our ears... "not only did the money you need come in but you leave in 19 days... WHAT?!

I think (besides the norm like my wedding and birth of my babies) I've never had such an overwhelming rush of emotions overtake me all at once. At first I felt excited, then relief (support raising is on the back burner for once in 2 years) then the reality of packing, moving (again), adjusting CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE! Not sure about you but 'Change' is one of my least favorite words :)

On the plus side (which is the most important thing) We know that this is what the Lord has for us right now as a family. His timing is perfect and what better place for us to be than in the Perfect Will of God! I feel safe, protected, comforted and relief as the craziness of packing and sorting consumes my day.

I am human, so emotions tend to take over, hey I'm the typical female :) but I know the Lord of my Life, of my husband's life and of my precious girl's will take care of us! He has a plan, His perfect plan and all we can do is remain faithful and do what He has asked us to do!

So we leave for Hungary in 16 days. I will become a resident of Toalmas, Hungary. WOW... My life is going to change in dramatic ways, but I know the Lord will take care of me, give me peace, strength and comfort in the days ahead.

Keep us in your prayers...