Brazil: Story of the Final Few Days

The 'Teatro Amazonas' Opera House in Manaus

 

I thought it was about time that I updated the blog with the story of Peter's final few days in Brazil. He is now home and the doctors here are really pleased with the surgery he had done. He is well on the road to recovery.

As you would expect, the days I missed were as action-packed and frustrating as the ones before it!

I left Brazil on the Saturday. On the Sunday morning, in one of the rare moments when Peter was on his own, a nurse brought him a form in Portuguese that she asked him to sign. Assuming it was something to do with his treatment, Peter signed it and was then left alone.

What Peter didn't know was that he had unwittingly signed his own discharge papers.

Perhaps realising that their patient hadn't grasped what he'd signed, one of the nurses tracked down an English speaker in the hospital and returned that afternoon with a piece of paper on which - to Peter's horror - was printed in bold capital letters the following message:

'YOU ARE FINISHED. PLEASE LEAVE'

By this point Peter hadn't even got out of bed, so the news that he had to leave the hospital was unsettling to say the least!

However at that very moment Pamela - the headteacher of the International School in Manaus (and the lady who had come up with the money to pay for our emergency flight out of Tefé) turned up with her Brazilian husband.

They clarified that Peter needed to leave that afternoon and were able to arange for some extra pain relief to help the transition. Brad and Melissa offered to put Peter up in their guest apartment and nurse him until he was ready to travel back to the UK. This was yet another example of God's complete control of the situation: Melissa is not only a qualified nurse, she had a hip replacement last year and so knew EXACTLY how to care for Peter!

The journey from the hospital bed to the car was complicated by the fact that hospitals in Brazil don't give walking aids to people in Peter's condition. However Pamela's husband seemed to know exactly where he could buy something (on a Sunday aftenoon!). Seeing  a gap in the market, an entreprenuerial Brazilian man had set up a small shop next to the hospital selling home-made zimmer frames!

And so Peter relocated to Brad and Melissa's guest apartment and  'Team Coggins' entered phase 2: getting Peter fit to fly.

At this point I'm going to let Andie - one of the missionaries who helped look after Peter when I had gone - finish off by recounting the adventures of the last few days in Brazil...

We were told that we had to get Peter’s post-op haemoglobin count, so that the airline (TAM) would allow him to fly.  So the first job was to track down a nurse to come out and draw blood. We then had to pick the results up from the clinic.

 

Then we had to track down a doctor to give Peter his ‘fit to fly’ document, which took a couple of visits to the hospital and much perseverance! The doctors who had treated Peter weren’t there when we visited and nobody would give us a document saying he could fly.

 

Just when we felt the situation was hopeless who should walk around the corner but the lovely lady who was Assistant to the Director of the hospital. She was the same lady who had visited Peter to apologise when his operation had had to be cancelled.

 

She came right up to us, grabbed me by the hand, and said ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’!!

 

We explained everything and she got straight on the phone and had a Doctor come down to see us. He wasn’t keen to write the ‘fit to fly’ document as he might have been liable if something had happened.  The hospital policy was to wait 10 days after surgery before a patient could fly, but amazingly Melissa had all Peter’s vital stats with her. She'd been keeping a record of them and she explained that she was a qualified nurse, Peter was mobile, she had been doing physio with him every day, and that he wasn't taking any medication apart from his current pain killers and had no heart issues.

 

It was great Melissa was there and had the presence of mind to have  Peter’s records with her. She convinced the doctor that Peter would be fine. So we left the hospital rejoicing, with Peter’s fit to fly document.

 

The next challenge was convincing the airline to let Peter fly!

 

Peter Milsom – recently retired Director of UFM (the mission agency connected to much of what we went to see) – just happened to be visiting some missionaries in Sao Paulo. His background meant that he had extensive experience not just of Brazil, but of how to deal with airline beauracracy. He had agreed to accompany Peter back to the UK and arrived in Manaus on Tuesday morning.

He was to prove to be another important component in God’s plan to get Peter home.

 

The crunch day was Wednesday when two suitable flights – from Manaus to Sao Paulo and then Sao Paulo to Heathrow - were identified.  

 

The negotiations during the last two or three hours before the flight were frantic!

 

We were able to get clearance from TAM in Manaus, but not in Sao Paulo for the second flight back to the UK.

 

The insurance company then said Peter couldn’t fly because they needed two more hours in Sao Paulo to examine the medical documents (at this point the flight was leaving in 2½ hours!). They also said that the next available seats were on Saturday!

 

I told Peter Milsom that the flights were off, but he rang the insurance company and somehow managed to get them to agree to let him pay for the tickets on the understanding that medical clearance hadn't been given in Sao Paulo. He felt confident he could negotiate this when they arrived in Sao Paulo. (He said this in a quietly confident 007 kind of way!)

 

It was then action stations to get everyone packed and to the airport in time for the flight. Pastor João, the Senior Pastor from Dom Pedro, picked Peter up and I drove Peter Milsom back to his hotel to get his stuff.

 

We even had time at the airport for a quick photo!

 

Team Coggins! From left:Peter Milsom, Andie, Pastor João and Brad

 

All things considered, Peter was an excellent patient in a foreign country, without any family, in a strange hospital. He did so well getting through each day graciously with his sense of humour intact.

 

We have seen God provide around every twist and turn and it’s been thrilling to be involved in his work. It was a real blessing to be able to help. We have seen on many occasions this last week God’s bottomless store of grace.

(Next week: 'Brazil: the lost blog' - in all the excitement of Peter's accident I didn't include a report on our only day in Ãlvareas - the small village we visited where Peter had his fall. We met some lovely people there and very nearly got to eat an alligator!)