With chilly temperatures and strong winds continuing to blow on and off throughout the day yesterday, as another cold front passed over, Roy spent some time adjusting docklines again to prevent the dinghy from getting squashed, although more adjustments were going to be required once the winds calmed.

Roy then got busy on his next yacht repair job; the leak in the starboard hot water tank. That, of course, meant unpacking everything from the starboard aft bunk to access the tank. At first he thought it was a task that was going to expand to multiple days, but, not being able to find a leak anywhere, today he disconnected and reconnected everything and the leak appears to have disappeared. Time will tell, though!

Elaine, on the other hand, took advantage of the cooler weather yesterday to complete her cleaning tasks on the port side, commenting later that it was a pleasure to clean without sweating profusely. A nice chat to her sister in Ireland interrupted play, but it was perfect timing to take a break.

Other tasks for the day included finalising hotels and car hire for our upcoming visits to see loved ones and finalising arrangements at the private hospital for our blood tests and checkups with the appropriate specialists.

That meant we were up early this morning to get to the hospital, which is located in Kumlaca, the next town along the coast from Finike. Of course, as with all new experiences, events didn’t quite pan out as we had expected.

The first hurdle was ensuring the laboratory was doing all the blood tests Elaine required. Although the list had been previously provided to the hospital, communications didn’t make it to the people who needed to know. Fortunately this was caught before a needle was stuck in Elaine’s arm. However, the hospital representative was keen to explain that the additional tests could have been performed after Elaine had seen the doctor, but seemed surprised when she informed him that one needle in 4 months was more than enough for her, never mind two in one day! Then, they not only forgot about Roy’s blood test initially, but completely overlooked him, thinking the phlebotomist had already seen him.

Once that mixup was resolved, we were escorted to a waiting room. This was the next clue that something was amiss; why were we seeing the same specialist? Well, turns out it wasn’t a specialist at all, but rather a general practitioner, who not only said he didn’t need to see Roy by telling Elaine that Roy’s blood test was normal, but in seeing Elaine, didn’t do any kind of physical examination; didn’t listen to her heart or lungs, didn’t take her temperature, didn’t take her blood pressure, didn’t weigh her, didn’t discuss her blood test results like her blood count, liver function, kidney function, cholesterol levels, glucose levels, etc, all important topics usually discussed with a patient who has Elaine’s conditions, but instead, told her she had an infection. When Elaine questioned this, he asked her a host of questions like: “Do you have a fever, do you have a cough, do you feel unwell, are you constipated, do you have a headache?”, and on he went, when each reply was a “no”. In the end he said he couldn’t tell her what type of infection it might be, but that she needed to see an “infection doctor”. Suspecting something was way off base and working through the interpreter, getting her blood test results was like pulling teeth, constantly having to prompt for information that is usually conveyed by a rheumatologist as a matter of course, by which time it became abundantly clear that this doctor had no clue as to why Elaine was there and what conditions she had, given that he had assumed her inflammatory indicators were indicative of an infection and not her inflammation; confirmed when Elaine enquired as to whether or not she was in the presence of a rheumatologist, only to receive the response: “Why do you need a rheumatologist?” What a complete waste of time! The only good news was that we eventually got the printouts of our blood tests and that’s all we needed at this stage.

The next saga, however, was trying to get an invoice printed after we’d paid. Three attempts eventually resulted in getting both invoices we needed; at first they only gave us the invoice for Roy’s care. Then they only gave us the invoice for Elaine’s care, while keeping the one for Roy’s care. Third time was the charm; we eventually got both invoices!

It’s fair to say, that, not only did this convoluted malarkey take nearly four hours, the level of care, even at this private hospital, was definitely not what we’re used to and, either we just had a bad experience or we’re definitely going to have to lower our expectations and standards moving forward!

For instance, neither Roy nor Elaine could recall the phlebotomist changing his gloves between patients and he definitely didn’t sanitise the area on our arms before he jabbed us, not to mention the fact that he really hurt Elaine. The other disconcerting fact was that, although the hospital staff were handing out masks to those who arrived without one, there were still people walking around the hospital with their masks under their chin and almost all of them were coughing and spluttering. If Elaine didn’t have an infection, she was surely at risk of getting one now!

Needless to say, we definitely won’t be visiting that hospital again! Oh how we miss Singapore and Malaysia for healthcare already!

The drive over to Kumluca, though, was very interesting. Besides being very picturesque, with the sparkling Mediterranean Sea on one side and the beautiful snowcapped mountains on the other, there were miles and miles of greenhouses and citrus groves, as far as the eye could see, nestled between the coastline and the mountain range.

Back in Finike, the taxi driver dropped us off at Cafe de Valencia, where we regrouped over a coffee and a baked delight, following which we stopped to get a late takeaway lunch; a “tavuk dürüm”. Delicious!

Back onboard, the winds calmed this evening, which allowed Roy to make final adjustments to our docklines with help from Gari, off Talisker, our floating neighbour, who was kind enough to offer his assistance, following which Roy’s special homemade soup warmed the cockles of our heart on another chilly night.