Well, this is how our weekend begun!

July 4, Thursday

Hi All,
I know you all have been anxiously awaiting for an update, but unfortunately I have bad news to report. As I mentioned before, Matt went for a massage the Wednesday before our trip which caused him back problems. He managed to squeeze 3 chiropractor appointments on the Friday and Saturday before our trip. He was still sore, but unfortunately things kept getting worse and worse. Last Thurday, it got so bad that Matt couldn't even roll over when he woke up, not to mention get out of bed. We both struggled to get him up for 6 hours, but when he stood up, the pain was unbearable and he just fell face down on the bed where he stayed for another 5 hours until help arrived. That morning I contacted our translator, who contacted our agency, who arranged for a former army massage-physio-therapist to come. She didn't arrive until 4 in the afternoon, at which time, advil and tylenol did absolutely nothing. She worked on him for 2 hours, even though she gave him more drugs, Matt was slipping in and out of conciencess. We all were worried and called for the ambulance. Once they got there, the apartment turned into a zoo. We had our agent in Toronto on the phone, actually two phones translating stuff back and forth (as our local translator went away for the weekend), we had my mom on the phone looking into coverage for our insurance, Tyler was a ton of help as he provided information about the chiropractor that he also happen to know, and as if that wasn't enough, our agency also contacted Canadian Ambassy who recommended a english speaking doctor from the British ambassy. Thru out this whole time, I was basically switching phones and talking to everybody I just listed several times. When I glanced into the room, Matt was getting injections in butt and arm....none of which seem to help. What a mess!!! At this point, I didn't care how much coverage we had, we had to get him to the hospital. They were tossing around the idea of kidney stones and heat stroke on top of everything as the medication they were giving him was not helping. So, off to the hospital we went. They did make Matt suffle his feet standing up, as they couldn't carry him out becuase one ambulance guy had back problems and the other one was about 100 lb soaking wet. Anyway, the guy with the back problems took off his backsupport belt thing and put it on Matt. Once we all crawled into the Ambulance from the 2nd world war, I ended up buying this used back belt-thing as it seemed to help and to provide some stability (I'm sure he ripped me off, but at this point, who cares!) I do have to mention that after our agent in Toronto hang up, I had to keep struggling with the language. So, we get to the hospital, and it looks like the 2nd world war was over, and here we are - back in the 40's. Doctors and nurses were super nice and seemed compentent, but man, the building and everything in it was old! Anyway, they checked him over,and took him to the 3rd floor in an elevator. Because the elevator was small, I had to take the stairs. As I'm passing the second floor, there are two nurses pushing a bed. Out of curiosity, I looked at the face of the patient, which was tightly covered, I look back up at the nurses and they are wearing masks...I held my breath, the whole time I was passing the dead body...in the room, Matt got hooked up to an iv and put him in a room with 3 guys. I left the hospital late that night with our adotion agents - they took the role of my parents here in Kiev. They were absoutely fabulous - one always stayed with me and the other one with Matt. I don't know what I would have done without them, and all the work that our Toronto agent did. I don't know how to thank them! That was a HUJOWY day, as they say in Ukrainian!