Right everyone, its Tuesday 16th April, I’m sitting in Hotel Atrium in my bandages one day post op.
Here’s my diary which I hope helps everyone thinking of going ahead with surgery with dr Clark.
Sunday: 15:00, my mum dropped me to Gatwick airport, said goodbye, checked in to my easyjet flight and thru passport control. Flight was on time, boarded at 17:10 and left at 17:30. Nice quick and easy flight had a bacon baguette on board and litre of water as had to fast from when I landed for my blood tests. Landed just after 20:00 in berlin. Walked off plane, straight ahead and followed everyone to passport control and luggage reclaim. All very simple, its sign posted in German and English. After getting my bags I followed Jeremy Clarke’s vague directions of going out the main double doors and right for 50m to get on my interglobus taxi bus to Szczecin. There was a interglobus bus there but I wasn’t on the list as this was the 20:30 bus I had to sit on my case for 45mins for the 21:15 bus. For anyone not too sure where to wait, it is directly outside TERMINAL B (cant miss it) there is 2 other bus stops one for holiday inn and one berlin express and it also says shuttle service. Theres no interglobus signs tho, but this is the place I promise. Finally got on my minibus, suitcase goes in the trailer, name checked on roster and off I went, only English person the rest polish. 2 long hours later we reached Szczecin, u get off at the interglobus shop. I didn’t know this, I asked the driver “who was taking me to hotel atrium?” and he pointed to a taxi waiting for me. I had to sign a little bit of paper so I didn’t have to pay the taxi (Jeremy pre paid)and he dropped me to the hotel atrium door. Arrived just before midnight, lovely hotel tho. Deserves 4 stars. Off I went to sleep with my alarm set for 7:30am. (remember clocks go forward an hour)
Monday: 7am I received a call from reception telling me that TOMAS would be waiting for me at 9am at reception. I slowly waked up, had a bath and trotted down to reception. There I met tomas and aaron. Aaron was another uk lad here for gyno too! Tomas drove us to the blood test clinic and we had our blood tests, we didn’t skip the queue had to wait 10mins behind everyone else. Me & aaron chatted, got on really well. Next Tomas dropped us back to the atrium, we thought wed be going for ultrasound but he informed us hed be back for us at 14:20. We had some breakfast, I had a sausage sandwhich and some fruit and juice. Then we had to check out our rooms and put our luggage in hold. Remember you only pay for the nights you stay there (one night is at --) so you cant leave ur stuff in ur room. So at about 10am with 4 hours to kill we wandered round town, actually pleasantly surprised, really nice, found all the shopping malls and had a good chat. Got back to Atrium at about 12, we couldn’t eat or drink and had 2hours to kill sitting in the lobby of the hotel! Those were a long couple hours, lucky we had each other to crack jokes about getting cut open in a few hours lol
14.20 and tomas arrives, take all our belongings as wel be going straight to -- after ultrasound. After driving like lewis Hamilton drunk, we got to ultrasound. We had to wait half hour standing in a dingy medical place to then go in a room for 2mins and have our ultrasounds. I asked the nurse what my ultrasound said as it was written in polish and she didn’t speak a word of English so I didn’t have a clue what is said and tomas could only communicate English. Me and aaron nervously joked wtf are we doing. So far not too impressed. Also very thirsty by now.
15:00 THE OP! tomas drove us to a modern development at which one end was --, he tried to ask us for 30zloty but we queried saying we thought as an agent of -- this shud be included. Any way into centre we went, dr clark buzzed us in and into an incredibly clean looking modern centre we walked! Tomas asked her about money and she gave him some and sent him on his way. It was so nice to finally meet her, she speaks perfect English and puts you at ease. We both went into her office, she thoroughly explained the operation, drawing pictures, talking thru all the possible bad side effects and went thru our paper work.looked at our blood tests and ultrasounds and Then she said who wants to go first, aaron being the nice guy he is allowed me. I took off my shirt and showed her my gyno, telling her everything I hate about it, she commented how lean I was and said don’t worry I will fix this. I changed into a gown went to the loo and then was led to the theatre. A couple of nurses were present and the anaesthetist. She said I had great veins and is very happy for me making her job easy lol. All I remember is her telling me she will give me something to relax and then anaesthetic when dr clark is ready.she put the line in my arm and Then its all blank! Next thing I awoke to bandages being wrapped around me and transported in to my “bedroom” on a wheel chair. I asked aaron have I even had the op lol? It seemed so quick I thought they just diddled me out of money and didn’t do anything lol
I felt no pain, I was a little bit drowsy but feelin pretty good. The nurse came in put on a blood pressure monitor and finger heart rate thingy and I had a nap for an hour whilst aaron had his op. he came back an hour later, much more groggy than me, he also had drains in. the nurse gave us pain killers and antibiotics, throughout the night she check our blood pressure and vitals. She also gave us the famous ham and cheese rolls cup of tea and a bottle of yougurt drink for dinner. She helps you go to the loo, I was fine on my feet but aaron needed a little extra support getting up etc. Dr clark will go home around 21:00 and say goodbye see u tomorrow. The nurse was lovely BUT speaks NO English, all she said wen touching our chest was “pain?” so u have to be a bit flamboyant explaining can I go to the loo, can u tighten my vest etc. I had great fun asking for the wifi password so I could fanny about on my phone! Me n aaron had a laugh, he kept falling asleep but I didn’t get to sleep until 3am..the vest gave me a back ache where it dig in. and this is the worst part, the beds are not in the slightest bit comfortable. I don’t think they are hospital standard beds, wen propped up for dinner she used a random rolled up sleeping bag etc. and the bed room is more a spare room with a sink an tv on the wall. Which we never used. If this was sorted i.e proper beds and room then the clinic would be perfect. Howeveerr I want to help to prepare you all for the reality.
Tuesday: I woke up today at 8am, me and aaron chatted for a bit, commented on the shit beds and how uncomfy we was. We felt a bit down, slightly disspaointed so far by the waiting, lack of communication from Jeremy and the fact we had paid for this service and felt a little unimportant. The nurse soon came in around 9 with breakfast, what was it I here u ask……ham and cheese sandwhiches with a yogurt drink and cup of tea of course! Ha. At 10am a knock on the door came and it was Jeremy clark! We didn’t expect to see him, wernt even sure if he was real. Lol he is slightly odd…bald chap, can tell his a university lecturer. Now he asked how we were, whether we knew about massage, exercise advice etc. all fine, but then he told aaron he must pay and extra 250 for lipo, aaron didn’t think he needed it pre op so this was an extra cost. It would have been fine but Jeremy kept this conversation going for several minutes stating its very important its wired over today. It all felt a little rude, but we said our goodbyes and I guess it is a business afterall. Att 11 dr clark returned, she has something about u, makes you feel good, she took as one at a time to see our chest….HOLY SH*T any bad thoughts about waiting etc went immediately I had a flat chest! NO GYNO I thanked her so much, she showed the gland pics, I had long worm like glands about 6cm long and a little stubborn fat lipod. I returned to the bedroom so aaron could go in kind of in a daze. I hadn’t been so happy since I was a kid. Aaron had his drains removed, saw his results and came back to the room and we just smiled then gave each other a high five. Lol. Said wed come along way in just over a day and it was all worth it in the end.
Dr clark came back , gave us our prescriptions, for antibiotics, pain killers and jellonets. (they cover ur nipple). We had a good chat wither for 20mins bout random stuff, here family, Poland etc shes honestly a lovely women. She explained how she does around 150 gyno ops a year and just makes you feel so confident in her skills. We said goodbye and arranged to come back at 11 on wednesady to have bandages removed and given the compression vests and showed massage etc. the chemist was a couple doors down, it came to about 82 zloty. About 15quid. She had arranged us a taxi which got us from the chemist and back to the atrium. It was tomas. And this time we had to pay him 20 zloty grrrr. We checked back into the hotel, I was given my same room which really us pretty luxury, can fault it one bit and its so clean. The receptionists are also ridiculously hot! But also a little grumpy. We popped down the road for lunch, got a chicken wrap with lots of salad. Both gone back to our rooms to rest up today, gna order room service for tea, probly chicken salad or sumin light. Gna hit the cinema tomorrow after our apt with dr clark and a nice shower! Maybe a bar on thurs night depending on how we feel. Cant stand not showering for a day.
Right now im in a very good place, I obviously came alone, but meeting aaron I gta admit had made this process ten thousand times easier, openly discussing our gyno, laughing abiut not being able to understand anyone and what the hell are we thinking coming to a foreign country for surgery! All helps take the edge of the nerves. Iv seen a couple of you want to come out here at the same time and my advice would be do it. I was expecting to be sitting in my room alone bored out my mind. But knowing you can pop out for a few hours with a mate is very refreshing.
Any questions you have please feel free to ask. I want to help as many people as possible who are nervous or thinking about surgery. If dr clark was in Harley street shed cost a fortune, the fact is her surgical skills are second t none. The only compromise is the fact you have a service of blood tests, ultrasound and waititng around that you would not receive in the uk etc I would definitely recommend her to anyone.
Sorry for the essay guys, hope it helps. Im off to kip for a bit
chris
Topic: Dr Clark gyno op poland April 2013 (Read 22388 times)
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