Though London is perhaps Katie and I’s favorite international destination, the five days we spent here were far more somber and worrisome than either of us could have possibly imagined they would have been. Ever since we left Rome, Katie had been feeling sick off and on. Though at time she showed improvement, her symptoms would reoccur with a certain periodicity which made me particularly frightened about the prospects that she could have Plasmodium vivax, a strain of malaria that can begin to show symptoms weeks even months after leaving a malaria area.
When on our last night in Paris she ran a 103 fever, I knew that without any laboratory equipment, my mom and I could not say if it was a case of something like the flu gone bad, or something as noxious (though fairly easily treatable) like malaria. As soon as we arrived in London, we decided we would try to get her seen by a physician at a hospital that would have the expertise to recognize it as well as have the drugs available to treat it. I had heard of the London Hospital for Tropical Medicine but wasn’t sure if it still existed. We figured as soon as we arrived, we’d start making calls and determining where she’d get the best care.
Though Katie spent most of the two hour ride to London asleep on my lap, I spent it reading and admiring the French countryside at 180 mph. I must say, the way the scenery looks from the train at that speed is much like the way it looks when one is in an airplane right before take off. Though it was nice to arrive in London, the only thing I could think about was getting Katie better.
As soon as we arrived to hotel after a brief taxi ride, Katie lay down and rested while I started calling the US Embassy, Aetna, and finally our own travel insurance to try to find where we could take her. We were starting to get frustrated because we couldn’t get information from anyone on where we could find good tropical medicine doctors, but then we realized that the office of one of my mom’s colleagues (the physician who runs the UK leprosy program) was located right next to University College Hospital. We assumed then that the Hospital for Tropical Medicine would be close to it. We later would learn that the hospital/department had in fact really been combined into a brand new and enormous hospital that was now simply known as “University Hospital.” Katie wrote enough about her own stay so there isn’t too much that I can really add except to say that it was my first real hospital experience from a patient’s point of view. It gave me a lot of ideas about how I should act when I’m a physician; it gave me even more ideas on how to run a hospital, though.
Since I spent the first night in Katie’s hospital room, I left for a few hours on Friday morning so that I could shower, change, and bring Katie a few things. When I left the hospital, I took the tube to Leicester Square and chose to walk from there to our hotel room, near Victoria Station. It was wonderful being able to retrace my steps through Trafalger, to walk by Downing Street, and to see Big Ben. The summer I got to have in London three years ago was one of the best experiences of my life and being able to walk again in this great city brought back many of those memories for me.
I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with Katie, mostly watching House reruns (oh the irony) and working to keep our spirits up. My parents visited in the evening hours; Katie and I were both relieved to hear that they were enjoying their time in London and were able to have a real vacation, despite the recent unfortunate turn of events. Ever since my parents left me with Katie on Thursday, I had recommended to them several museums, walks, attractions, etc so that they could feel as much as possible that they were on vacation. I left Katie that night around 10:30 and spent about two hours walking around St. Paul’s, the Millennium Bridge, and all around the South Bank.
I spent some time on Saturday morning with Katie again, until my parents showed up around 1:30 and we spent a few hours together sightseeing. We tried to get tickets to a National show, but when we arrived we learned that it was the show’s final night so naturally they were sold out. None of the other shows really interested us, and my parents weren’t too keen on the idea of obtaining standing tickets in the nosebleed section so from there we took off to the Imperial War Museum. They have an excellent permanent exhibition on genocide and I was interested to go see it again, especially because of my recent readings on Rwanda, our visit to Auschwitz, and our upcoming stopover in Cambodia. After we felt as though we had exhausted the museum, we went to a pub called The Three Stags where we had a nice dinner served to us by a Polish waitress. Afterwards, I returned back to the hospital to check up on Katie while my parents went to do some more sightseeing on their own.
We woke up Sunday morning (this is April, mind you) and found all of London enveloped in a snowstorm! Though it wasn’t coming down too hard, it was still a bit cold (and not to mention terribly bizarre) to head to mass in the snow, in the middle of springtime. After mass, we thought we’d explore the Notting Hill area and go to the Portobello Road Market; we were amused to see so many beautiful flowers blooming with snow piled on top of the petals! After a nice lunch and some more walking near Hyde Park, we parted ways once more so that I could check up on Katie. We met up a few hours later in the hospital and went for a walk around Parliament before my parents went walking a bit more on their own and I went to see Katie once more. Fortunately, on Monday morning Katie got discharged and we got to spend the rest of the day with my parents and thankfully due to travel insurance, one more with just the two of us before we arrived in Morocco!
Tommy, you obviously took excellent care of Katie. Thank you. We were really worried!
With love,
Ms Joan
Katie, THANK YOU so much for these wonderful pctiures, it appears now as if rain, closed roads and schedule conflicts all happened for a reason, to give us these awesome pctiures! Muchas gracias for doing such a great job!
Now I know who the brainy one is, I’ll keep looking for your posts.