On January 24, 2010, we boarded the Norwegian Jade for a Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona, Spain to Rome, Athens, Ephesus, Alexandria and Malta.  I had a bad case of bronchitis and had gone to see the doctor the week before we left.  I took a ten-day supply of antibiotics and got the prescription refilled before we left on the trip.  About 9:00 on Saturday night, the 30^th, Ted came down with a bad case of diarrhea.  There had been several cases of the Norwalk virus onboard and the cruise director kept making announcements that if you had any symptoms, to call the ships doctor and to stay in your cabin.  Ted was pretty sure it was just something he ate, but we called the doctor anyway and a nurse came to the cabin to see Ted.  She gave him some Imodium and told him to remain isolated in his cabin until he had gone twenty-four hours without any diarrhea, and at that time he would be released from isolation.  I had started getting sick with bronchitis again and started taking antibiotics again.   

We arrived in Alexandria on January 31^st, and because there had been so many cases of the virus, the ship was six hours late clearing immigration.  Since Ted was still isolated to the cabin, and I was still not feeling well, we decided not to take a tour there, but Mom and June decided they wanted to take a short Alexandria city tour.  The tour started at 2:00 and while on an excursion there, Mom fell and broke her hip.  She was taken by ambulance to the Al Salama hospital.  Ted and I were in the cabin, in or PJs, and the phone rings…I answered and someone from the customer service desk tells me that while on the tour, my mother fell and broke her hip and that if I would come to the pursers desk, someone would take me to the hospital to see her.  Ted however, could not go with me, because he was still isolated to the cabin until 9:00 that night.

I was so frightened, and did not know what to expect, but went to the pursers desk and was meet by a port authority agent.  He got a taxi for us and went with me to the hospital to see my mother.  When I arrived at the emergency room, she was in X-ray and I had to wait about an hour before I could see her.  She had broken her hip into four pieces and we were told she needed surgery to fix her hip.  The hospital was filthy and unsanitary and there was no way we were going to let them do surgery on her there.  The blanket they had on her bed was filthy; it looked like a dog had been sleeping on it.  She had a gash above her right eye that needed sutures and I didn’t even want them to touch that.  I knew that it had to be closed, so I agreed to let them suture it.  I sat in the ER and watched as they worked on her and could not believe that the nurse had an assistant that was holding the suture with his bare fingers as they stitched up my mother.  I thought that if getting stitches was so unsanitary, how bad it would be to let them do surgery to fix her hip. 

I stayed at the hospital with Mom and by the time they got her admitted and in to a room, it was around 9:00PM.  I decided that I needed to go back to the ship to let Ted know what was going on.  I left June with Mom and I took a taxi back to the ship.  There are only certain taxi’s that can enter the port and so the taxi driver had to drop me off at the entrance to the port.  It was around 10:00 at night and the ship was a long walk from the entrance.  There were not many people around and I was scared to death to walk all that way by myself.  I didn’t think I would ever get back to the ship.  I was approached by a man trying to sell me something that I think was hash, and I kept thinking, OH MY GOD, ALL I NEED IS TO GET ARRESTED AND THROWN IN JAIL.

I finally got back to the ship and went to the cabin and found Ted and let him know what was going on.  We talked to the purser’s desk and were told that they would now allow Mom back on the ship, so we decided to start packing all of our stuff and get off the ship the next morning.  I had Mom’s cabin key and found out that it did not work when we went to her cabin to pack up her and June’s things.  Luckily the cabin steward let us into the room. 

At 6:00AM, Ted and I got off the ship and went back to the hospital.  We decided that we had to get Mom on an air ambulance out of Egypt to DFW and I started making phone calls.  I contacted her insurance company and was told they would not pay for an air ambulance to transport her somewhere else.  They said that the hospital there was an adequate facility.  They said they had people that toured the hospitals and decided if they were adequate facilities.  I said I wanted to talk to that person because I wouldn’t take my dog there for surgery.

The nurse had started an IV in Mom’s hand and after a couple of days it infiltrated and they had to move it to her arm.  After the nurse left the room, the doctor came in to talk to us and he found the old bloody IV needle lying in the bed next to my mother.  The nurse just walked out and left it there.  The doctor even made a comment that if that had happened in the states, the nurse would be fired.  At the hospital, they would bring in a food tray and set it on a table in the room, which my mom would not eat and when they would bring in the next tray, they would not pick up the old tray, they just sat the new down on top of the old one and the trays just kept stacking up.  There was a glass of what I assumed was milk, it was thick, beige in color and had a thick layer of curdled cream on top.  After a couple of days, we asked them to stop bringing in the food trays and they started bringing in just fruit.  Mom wouldn’t eat the fruit either, we had now idea how it had been cleaned and we could not even drink the water in the hospital.  When we asked for water, the nurse brought in a glass of water that she had filled from the tap.  We had been told to only drink bottled water.  The one nurse that spoke pretty good English, told us not to drink the water there, only bottled water. I saw in a room across from the nurse’s desk, a large bottle of water on a dispenser.  I took one of our empty bottles over and asked if I could refill it from the bottled water dispenser.  The nurse told me I could, but when I went in the room, the bottle was empty.  One of the nurses came in and picked up the empty bottle and took it around the corner to a janitor’s closet and refilled it from the tap. 

The windows in the hospital would not even close completely.  The curtains would blow in the breeze.  There was construction on the street below and on the roof of the hospital; they were tearing down something, because they kept lowering buckets full of debris right in front of our window.  Dirt was all over the floor and the curtains, that were supposed to be white, were a filthy beige color.

I called Valerie Garland at work on 2/1 and got a phone number for Steve Wallace of Air Care Life Flights.  Valerie had talked to him and explained what we needed and he quoted her a price of $67,850 to take us from Alexandria to DFW.  He said it would be an extra $4000 for a larger plane that would accommodate all four of us plus our luggage and the medical personnel.  I contacted Mr. Wallace and I explained that my mother had a broken hip and would have to be on a stretcher and that there would be three passengers traveling with her along with all of our luggage.  He quoted me a price of $71,950 to get us from Alexandria to DFW and said he could have a plane there within 48 hours of a cash payment.  He told me that he would arrange all the ambulance transfers, but that we would have to pay for that ourselves.  We got a $15000 deposit to him that day so he could start working on arranging the flights.

Ted and June went back to the ship to get all of our luggage.  Someone from the customer service desk on the ship called the Sofitel and reserved a room for us.  Ted and June got off the ship and got all the luggage loaded in the taxi.  They were almost to the hotel when the port authority agent got a phone call and was told to bring Ted back to the ship. 

Ted left June in the taxi with all the luggage and went back to the ship.  He swiped his card key back on board and was told he could not get back on the ship.  He was told that the ship’s doctor needed to see him and was taken to a room to see the doctor.  He was informed that he was not going to be allowed to get off the ship because he had been under quarantine.  He was escorted to the cabin and four people stayed in the room with him.  He called me and told me that they were not going to let him get off the ship. 

When Ted told me that June went to the hotel with all the luggage and that they were not going to let him off the ship, I immediately got on the phone and called the American Embassy.  They only took phone calls between 1:00 and 3:00, so I left a voicemail to please have someone call me back ASAP.  Someone did call me back and started working on getting Ted off the cruise ship.  The ship was scheduled to sail out of Alexandria at 7PM that evening.  The embassy was able to get the Health Minister in Cairo to overrule the Alexandria tourist authority and they made them let Ted off the ship.  I in the meantime was still at the hospital with Mom and had no idea if Ted would get off the ship in time.  At 6:30 Ted and June walked in to Mom’s room.  I was never so relieved to see anyone in my life.  I had not talked to him since he had let me know they were on going to let him off the ship and I new it was getting close to time for the ship to sail and had no idea if he got off in time.

While we were there, Mom started getting bronchitis and I gave her my antibiotics.  I knew that if she was sick, there would be no way they could do surgery on her.  I kept getting sicker and sicker.

Steve Wallace kept telling us that he could only get a smaller plane that would only take my mother and one other passenger and that if we wanted a plane that would hold all four of us along with all our luggage, we would have to pay $12000 more.  We opted for the larger plane and paid him the extra money, and on Wednesday night he informed us that he could only get a plane that would hold three of us, with no luggage to London.  I had to take the smaller plane with my mom and mother-in-law and we could not take any luggage.  Mr. Wallace arranged a flight for Ted on Olympic Air and said he would take care of the luggage.  I left Alexandria on the morning of the 4^th, and waved goodbye to Ted at the airport.  I was scared to death to leave him and I had only slept five hours in the last four days.  I was also so sick from the bronchitis, I could hardly hold my head up.

Ted went to Olympic Air to pick up his ticket and was informed that the extra luggage would cost $2000.  He had to leave the luggage in Egypt at the hotel. 

The flight to England was quite a trip.  There was no restroom on the plane and we had to stop in Italy to refuel.  When we got to the airport, we were allowed to get off the plan to use the restroom, but we had to be escorted by an airport employee.  We went in to the terminal and used the ladies room and when we came out, there were 2 men waiting for us.  We were told we could not go anywhere in the terminal and had to go immediately back to the plane.  It was a seven hour flight.

I had given Steve Wallace the name of a hospital in London that we wanted to take my mother to and he was supposed to make the arrangements for the ambulance transfer.  When we arrived at Luton airport, there was no ambulance waiting for us.  I had to leave my mother on the plane and go in to the lounge at the airport and try to figure out how to get an ambulance and get my mother transferred to the hospital in London.  I was told that if we called a local ambulance service, that they would take her to the closest hospital.  We had no choice but to do that, but I had no idea what hospitals were in the area and the girls that worked at the airport helped me find phone numbers for an ambulance service.  I later found out that while we were in the lounge trying to find out what happened to the ambulance that was supposed to meet us and then call another one to come pick us up and take us to a local hospital, my mother was taken off the plan and was on a stretcher on the tarmac in the freezing cold waiting for the ambulance.  The ambulance finally arrived and I had to pay the ambulance $435 cash to take my mother to Watford General Hospital. 

While we were waiting on the ambulance at Luton, I called my friend Nancy that lives in England and let her know that we were there and what was going on.  She immediately got online and found a hotel near the hospital for us and booked two rooms for us.  She also ordered a car to pick Ted up at Gatwick the next day and bring him to the hotel. 

We arrived at the hospital around 8:00 the evening of 2/4 and my mother was seen in the ER.  They got her admitted to the hospital and told us that they would do surgery on her the next morning.  We got to the hotel around midnight and planed to be back at the hospital before they took her to surgery on Friday morning.

June and I arrived at the hospital the next morning around 9:00AM and they had just come to get my mother for surgery…I had just missed her.  I was so upset that I didn’t get to talk to her before they took her to surgery.  June and I went across the street to the cafeteria to wait while my mother was in surgery.  I was so worried about her, and I still had not heard from Ted.  I knew he should be on his way, but wouldn’t probably arrive until after noon sometime.  June and I were sitting there and I looked up and I saw Nancy walking towards us.  I was soooooo happy to see her.  I jumped up and hugged her and just started crying. 

We sat in the cafeteria until 12:30 and decided to walk back over to the hospital, because they had told us that Mom should be out of surgery about that time.  We were right outside the entrance to the hospital and Ted came walking out.  I was so relieved to see him, I just started crying again. 

We walked back to Cleves Ward, where they were supposed to bring my mom after recovery and she was just waking up from surgery.  She was absolutely scared to death.  She grabbed my hand and starting telling me that there was a conspiracy at the hospital to kill her.  She said that last night she heard some doctors talking about keeping her in the hospital until they drained her of all her money and then they would cause an embolism to kill her.  I knew that she was having an anesthia, drug induced nightmare, but she was so sure that it was true and was scared to death.  She thought that a man that was visiting the patient across from her was part of it and that he was watching us and that he could read lips.  She asked me to tell Ted to start an investigation with Scotland Yard.  She told me “Do not leave me alone for one minute, if you do, I will be dead when you get back”.  It scared me; because she was so sure it was true and was furious with me because I didn’t believe her.  I kept trying to calm her down and explain that nothing like that was happening.  I tried to talk the nurse in to letting me stay the night with her, but they have a very strict visitation schedule and they would not let me stay.  She was better the next day, but still not convinced there was no conspiracy.  It took about three days for her to realize it was the morphine.

Nancy stayed the whole week-end with us and helped so much.  She went shopping and bought cell phones for Ted and me.  She bought cold medicine for me, shampoo, conditioner, and everything else she thought we might need.  She took June on a tour of London and she even took June to the airport on Sunday and stayed there with her until she knew she was on the flight.  I don’t know what I would have done without her.

While in England, Mom had several things happen.  First, they started giving her laxatives to make her go the bathroom and she got diarrhea so bad that she got dehydrated.  They were giving her blood thinners to keep her from forming a blood clot and she got a stomach bleed.  We had planned to fly back on the 11^th, but she was so sick from the dehydration and the stomach bleed they had to give her 2 units of blood and IV’s to get her hydrated again. 

We were in England for nine days before she was stable enough to get her on an AA flight from Heathrow to DFW.  Paula met us at DFW on February 14^th and we took her directly to Baylor Grapevine to the ER at 3:00PM and after eight hours in the ER, they admitted her and took her up to a room.  On Monday, the 15^th, they had several tests to run on her.  She had one thing after another happen.  When we arrived at Baylor, she had pneumonia and a blood clot.  They started her on blood thinners for the blood clot and she got a stomach bleed again on the 17^th.  They did an endoscope and did not find anything serious, so they stopped the blood thinners and had to go in and put a filter in her abdomen on the 19^th to keep the blood clot from hitting her lungs if it broke loose.  She had a NG tube for two days.  The stomach bleed finally stopped, but then she started having heart problems over the week-end.  She had a heart monitor and she had ventricular fibrillations and they had to do a heart cath on Monday the 22^nd.  We were told that she had a 99% blockage in one artery and 80% in the other.  On Wednesday the 24^th, they put two stints in her and had to start the blood thinners again.  She immediately started throwing up blood again that evening.  They had to do another endoscope and found five bleeding ulcers.  They had to take her off the blood thinners again and put in another NG tube.  On the 26^th, they got the stomach bleed stopped and they took the NG tube out and she remained in the Cardiac ICU until March 4^th.  They transferred her to a rehab facility at Baylor Irving for nine days.  On March the 13^th, we were able to take her home.

It was so crazy, I was at the hospital with her almost 24/7 and did not get back to work until March 1^st.  I was off work for five weeks.  Ted got a job offer while we were in England and had to turn it down because Mom was doing so bad and we did not know when we would get home.  Our luggage was Egypt and FedEx wanted $1000 to ship it home, DHL quoted me $1800.  After three months, I found a place in Cairo that shipped it for $535.  It was like Christmas when we finally got all the luggage back.