The guard translated for me and explained, to the two police officers, what was going on. My wife was loaded into the ambulance, which by the way, was a white van with an old fashioned gurney. The driver and his partner decided to take us to the American hospital, because I only spoke English. The police stayed right behind us as we traveled to the hospital. It really wasn't a hospital. It was lake a very large garage with some examining rooms. The doctor spoke English. I explained to him about the fainting spells, and he set about examining my wife. While that was going on, I was brought to the other end of this examining room. With the help of an interpreter, I found myself being interrogated by the police.
They wanted to know what happened. They were carrying guns. Not in holsters, but in their hands. They weren't threatening me, they just had the guns in their hands. The guns appeared, to me, to be some type of automatic weapon. I have no knowledge of firearms, it's just that they looked the way I would expect automatic weapons to look. As the police were witiing down my statement, I could see the doctor doing tests on my wife. He was using a tuning fork. I still havn't figured out what he was doing, but he did seem quite capable. He called over one of the police officers and that had a short conversation. Then the doctor came over to talk to me. He was very polite and explained that he wanted to send her for pictures of her head. So we got back into the ambulance and off we went. The police stayed right behind us.
We went to a medical type building and we were then separated. They took my wife into a large room with CT scanning equipment. I could see her through a large window. There were other people in this room also having CT scans done. I was surprised that there was no privacy and that they could do a number of scans at the same time. I was ushered up to a check in desk and told the test would cost money. I took out what I had in Egyptian money and the person at the desk took what they needed form my hand. I don't really know what it cost, but I don't think it was more that a hundred dollars. The police stayed with me the entire time, one on each side of me, still with their guns drawn.
About 30 minutes later, a technician came out and talked to one of the police officers. They told me to go with the technician. He took me into the large room with all the patients, and walked me over to a monitor. In front of me was a picture of a brain with a very large mass near the center. I asked him if that was something, and he said yes but that they needed to take more pictures, this time with a dye injected into her vein. He handed me a small packet with a needle protruding from the center. He wanted me to inject the dye. There was no way that I was going to do any injecting. He told he he could do it, but it would cost twenty-five dollars extra. I gave him the money, he did it, and finished the pictures.
We got back into the van and the driver told me he would take us back to the American hospital. Off we went. I then realized the police were gone. After a short drive, we stopped on a side street, and the driver told me thee would be right back. We actually sat in the van about an hour. It took me a awhile, but I figured out, that they went to lunch and left us there. When they returned, we continued to the American hospital. The doctor wasn't there, he was at an actual hospital. They took us there next.
When we caught up with the doctor, he called me aside, and told me he had received the results. He said she had a brain tumor and that she needed to go home for help. He could make her comfortable, but they were not equipped to deal with this type of illness. I decided to tell her myself. I went over to her and explained about the brain tumor, and that we needed to go home right away. She took it very well. The ambulance drivers took us back to our hotel. We had to pay them in cash for their service.
The time was now about 5:00 o'clock. This ordeal had lasted the whole day. Our tour guide came to our room He of course, had been very concerned, not really knowing what happened to us. He arranged for us to have dinner in our room, with that incredible view of the Nile River. He also helped me make plane reservations so we could leave the next morning. That trip could take about 24 hours. It had scheduled stops in both London and Chicago.
The next posting will be the trip home.
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