The Week that Was!!

I haven't posted a blog for over a week, for several reasons.
First, Loretta and I joined our three daughters, Joanne, Dora and Susanna, and granddaughter Kaitlyn, in Athens on Sunday, April 5, as they flew in from the States, and we were joined by Kaitlyn's Dad, Steve, on Tuesday. So since that Sunday we have been busy traveling. Our first week with our girls was designed as a kind of tour of classical Greek archaeological sites--Myceneae, Naufplio, Epidauros, Olympia, and Delphi. Then we came to Crete with our rented van on a ferryboat on Thursday night to begin our time here on Crete.
The second reason for a late blog is that I lost my laptop computer in Athens on Monday, April 6, when I misplaced it or had it stolen--not sure what happened. So when I did have some time to work on the computer it wasn't easily available to me. This is also the reason I'm not including any pictures with this and succeeding blogs, at least at this time.
The third reason for a late blog is that our family has been dealing with a fairly agressive intestinal bug of some kind that has laid about all of us low at one time or another this past week. I'll spare you the gory details, but it hasn't been pretty for any of us. We know that Kaitlyn had diarrhea on the trip over from the States, so it's easy to blame her, but it may have been something we all ate as well I suppose.
While the rest of us have been fighting it off fairly successfully without official medical help, Loretta hasn't been so fortunate, since her immune system is already compromised by the anti-rejection drugs she takes for her kidney transplant. Actually, she has been struggling with colds and infections since we left home for Israel, but always managed to recover pretty well. The week before we flew to Athens to meet the girls, she had a bad cough that persisted so much that I sent her to an Athens hospital emergency room on Sunday, April 5. She was treated with a three day flu drug therapy and seemed to respond to that. By Tuesday she was having her first good day in a week. Then she got this intestinal bug, and it has laid her pretty low. We knew on the ferryboat to Crete on Thursday night that we would need to seek medical treatment for her again, so when we arrived in Iraklion on Friday morning we took her to a hospital emergency room here in the city. They have kept her in until now, but the doctors are quite sure she can be dismissed tomorrow (Tuesday).
She has received excellent medical attention from the nephrologists (kidney doctors) on staff here, and we feel very confident about the quality of medical care she is getting and responding to. Of course, the medical system is quite different and strange in many ways as well. It is an experience of Greek culture we would have preferred not learning to know so well, but yet we are learning so much from this experience too. And we are so thankful that they were able to turn around the dehydration that was on the verge of threatening her kidney transplant.
Despite our illnesses, we have been able to do just about everything we had intended to do. The family spent a little more time than we had planned exploring things here in Iraklion where Joanne was born and where we lived for two years, but that hasn't been bad. And today the family took off to see the East Coast of Crete where Susanna worked on an archaeological site in 2004. Loretta and I are sorry to miss that, but we had traveled there when we lived here so we know it is a beautiful part of the island. Tomorrow, with Loretta dismissed from the hospital, we will return to Kolymbari and our "base" at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for the last two weeks here on Crete. At this point we hope to finish out, though at times this weekend we considered coming home early because of Loretta's health. At this point I think it will be safe to stay until our secheduled flights.
So much for our news for now, and the week that our family will remember in a number of remarkable ways for years to come!
Roy