We've been in Okinawa for just over 24 hours now, and let's just say things haven't exactly been smooth sailing. I'll start with yesterday. The day started alright. We got up and finished getting things ready to go before the van came to pick us up. The van showed up early and I wasn't ready to go. Not a huge deal. I just thought I'd have an extra 5 minutes. We stop and pick up one other person and head to the airport. Things still ok. Traffic was pretty heavy most of the way, but luckily the airport we flew out of isn't very far so we still made it with about an hour to spare before our flight. Once we figured out how to check in (because we just had a print out of our itinerary), we got our boarding passes, checked our suitcase, and headed to security. They are so much more laid back here than they are in the states. Didn't have to take laptops out of our bags, let alone take our shoes off. So that was nice. We get through and decide we need food as we kinda skipped breakfast in our hurry to get out the door. What we didn't realize was our choices were kinda limited once we passed through security. We ended up settling on sandwiches and juice. I know, not very exciting, but it was food. We relaxed in a couple massaging chairs while we ate and waited to board the plane. Relaxing, but definitely not long enough. Time comes to board the plane. Who knew so many people flew down to Okinawa. The flight was full. We ended up with middle seats which really wasn't all that comfortable, but oh well. It was only a 2 1/2 hour flight. They had a camera on the front of the plane so we could see what the pilot saw as we took off and landed which I thought was pretty cool. We finally get to Oki, get off the plane, find our luggage and go to find our ride. The hospital sent down a van to pick us up and take us to the hotel. Things still going alri
ght. Just chillin' and watching out the window taking in the sights, when I look down and see this big spider on my door. He was outside, but still gross. Yes, that's my hand next to him to give you an idea of how big he was. Yuck! I have no idea what kind of spider he was, but I guess he thought he was part of the welcoming committee. It's just a good thing he was on the outside and not actually in the car. So after a little bit we get to our hotel. Pulling up outside my first thought was "ok this might not be too bad." I don't know that I could have been more wrong. We go to check in, and are reading over the fees/fines etc and to give you an idea of how ridiculous they are, it cost more to replace the room key if you lost it than it did to stay in the room for one night. We go to the room and I don't think it could have been any smaller. It had a double bed (yes a double bed for the both of us to share) which was super hard, it did have a small kitchen area which would have been nice if there had been somewhere close by to go get food. There was no internet, but they did have cable tv. It's been so long since I've seen American commercials and had more than seven channels to choose from. It was a nice change though. After spending about 5 minutes in the room we decided to go see if they had anything bigger. They didn't. So we called the main reservation desk, and they said they had a room in a different hotel that we could stay in, but it wouldn't be open until the next day. Ok we can deal with this small dinky room for one night. We go back to the room, order a pizza for lunch/dinner, and turn the tv on. Pizza finally shows up, we eat, and then settle in for nap. Not the most comfortable, but it helped. We finally wake up, have some dinner and start noticing little bugs crawling around the room. We don't think much of it right then. It's not until we're getting ready for bed that we realize how bad they really are. Ben picked up his computer (which was sitting on a chair, not the floor) and it's covered in these little ant bugs. Then we start finding more. All over the counter, the chair, the bedside table, the floor, everywhere! It's like 11pm now, and of course there is no one up at the front desk for us to talk to. We call the reservation desk again and tell them we need a new room NOW! There's no way we're going to stay there sleeping with the bugs. They worked something out for us and we're able to get a new room , we just had to find a way to get there. We pack our stuff back up real quick while the cab is called and get ready to head out. By midnight we were checking in to the new hotel. This one's much nicer. Bigger bed, internet, and no bugs. By the time we get settled back in and ready for bed it's close to 2 am. Neither of us slept that great. I'm sure it was because we were sleeping in a different bed, and just having a hard time unwinding after the day. Ben's first appt was at 11 this morning, or so we thought. We got to the hospital and first went to the wrong clinic. I thought Urology was first, but we should have been up at the GI. They didn't tell us that until after we'd been sitting there for about 10 minutes. So we run upstairs, only to find out they have rescheduled our appt for later this afternoon. Now we've got about 2 hours to kill before we had back to Urology for that appt. We get a cab and come back to the base where the hotel is as that's where the food court and anywhere to eat is. We get some lunch, wander around the exchange for a little bit, and then head back to the hotel for a bit. Ben set up a wireless internet router so we can both use our laptops in the room. They provide a computer with internet access in each room, but that's all. And when we both like spending time on our computers that was just a bit of a problem. So he got that all set up and we're a happy couple for the moment. We call another cab and head back over to the hospital. Now our first appt is with Urology. We head up, check in, do vital signs, blah blah blah. We go back to the waiting room for a couple minutes before meeting with the dr. I can't say we are overly impressed with the dr. She seems nice and all, but not too concerned with finding the cause of the kidney stones. She ordered a CT Scan and some blood work, but all that's gonna tell us is if he has any kidney stones now and not why he has them. That's really all she does though. She puts in the orders and we leave. By now we're feeling that this trip is a waste of time. We've got an hour and a half to kill before his GI appt, but we head upstairs anyway. We hang out in their waiting room for a while before the dr says he can see us early. We go back, we talk, and were basically told "I don't know what's wrong with you and I don't know if we'll be able to figure it out." He's willing to do whatever we want, but he has more ideas of what's not wrong than what is. Not exactly what we want to hear. We may just end up treating the symptoms, but really we want to find the cause of the pain. He's been in so much pain lately that he just really can't do anything by himself. He's on Percocet right now, but even that doesn't completely help. It takes the edge off so he can move around, but that's about it. I brought that up with the dr and he said there really isn't anything we can do right now to help that. This dr doesn't like to prescribe narcotics for gut pain, but that's all that helps Ben right now, so he's not going to say stop taking it. So again, we leave the clinic without any answers. He did order a test to check out his small intestine (I can't remember what it's called right now) just to make sure the problems aren't there. We head down to Radiology to schedule it and are told the next available appt is Sept 10th. We're supposed to leave the 3rd and really don't feel like hanging around an extra week just for this test. So we head back up to talk to the dr and he's going to call the Radiologist and see if we can't get it done sooner. If not we'll do a different test. So once again we are playing the waiting game with no answers in sight. You have NO idea how frustrating this is getting. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Why can't someone just give us some answers?!?! So that's been our trip so far. I'll let ya know if we find anything else out.
ght. Just chillin' and watching out the window taking in the sights, when I look down and see this big spider on my door. He was outside, but still gross. Yes, that's my hand next to him to give you an idea of how big he was. Yuck! I have no idea what kind of spider he was, but I guess he thought he was part of the welcoming committee. It's just a good thing he was on the outside and not actually in the car. So after a little bit we get to our hotel. Pulling up outside my first thought was "ok this might not be too bad." I don't know that I could have been more wrong. We go to check in, and are reading over the fees/fines etc and to give you an idea of how ridiculous they are, it cost more to replace the room key if you lost it than it did to stay in the room for one night. We go to the room and I don't think it could have been any smaller. It had a double bed (yes a double bed for the both of us to share) which was super hard, it did have a small kitchen area which would have been nice if there had been somewhere close by to go get food. There was no internet, but they did have cable tv. It's been so long since I've seen American commercials and had more than seven channels to choose from. It was a nice change though. After spending about 5 minutes in the room we decided to go see if they had anything bigger. They didn't. So we called the main reservation desk, and they said they had a room in a different hotel that we could stay in, but it wouldn't be open until the next day. Ok we can deal with this small dinky room for one night. We go back to the room, order a pizza for lunch/dinner, and turn the tv on. Pizza finally shows up, we eat, and then settle in for nap. Not the most comfortable, but it helped. We finally wake up, have some dinner and start noticing little bugs crawling around the room. We don't think much of it right then. It's not until we're getting ready for bed that we realize how bad they really are. Ben picked up his computer (which was sitting on a chair, not the floor) and it's covered in these little ant bugs. Then we start finding more. All over the counter, the chair, the bedside table, the floor, everywhere! It's like 11pm now, and of course there is no one up at the front desk for us to talk to. We call the reservation desk again and tell them we need a new room NOW! There's no way we're going to stay there sleeping with the bugs. They worked something out for us and we're able to get a new room , we just had to find a way to get there. We pack our stuff back up real quick while the cab is called and get ready to head out. By midnight we were checking in to the new hotel. This one's much nicer. Bigger bed, internet, and no bugs. By the time we get settled back in and ready for bed it's close to 2 am. Neither of us slept that great. I'm sure it was because we were sleeping in a different bed, and just having a hard time unwinding after the day. Ben's first appt was at 11 this morning, or so we thought. We got to the hospital and first went to the wrong clinic. I thought Urology was first, but we should have been up at the GI. They didn't tell us that until after we'd been sitting there for about 10 minutes. So we run upstairs, only to find out they have rescheduled our appt for later this afternoon. Now we've got about 2 hours to kill before we had back to Urology for that appt. We get a cab and come back to the base where the hotel is as that's where the food court and anywhere to eat is. We get some lunch, wander around the exchange for a little bit, and then head back to the hotel for a bit. Ben set up a wireless internet router so we can both use our laptops in the room. They provide a computer with internet access in each room, but that's all. And when we both like spending time on our computers that was just a bit of a problem. So he got that all set up and we're a happy couple for the moment. We call another cab and head back over to the hospital. Now our first appt is with Urology. We head up, check in, do vital signs, blah blah blah. We go back to the waiting room for a couple minutes before meeting with the dr. I can't say we are overly impressed with the dr. She seems nice and all, but not too concerned with finding the cause of the kidney stones. She ordered a CT Scan and some blood work, but all that's gonna tell us is if he has any kidney stones now and not why he has them. That's really all she does though. She puts in the orders and we leave. By now we're feeling that this trip is a waste of time. We've got an hour and a half to kill before his GI appt, but we head upstairs anyway. We hang out in their waiting room for a while before the dr says he can see us early. We go back, we talk, and were basically told "I don't know what's wrong with you and I don't know if we'll be able to figure it out." He's willing to do whatever we want, but he has more ideas of what's not wrong than what is. Not exactly what we want to hear. We may just end up treating the symptoms, but really we want to find the cause of the pain. He's been in so much pain lately that he just really can't do anything by himself. He's on Percocet right now, but even that doesn't completely help. It takes the edge off so he can move around, but that's about it. I brought that up with the dr and he said there really isn't anything we can do right now to help that. This dr doesn't like to prescribe narcotics for gut pain, but that's all that helps Ben right now, so he's not going to say stop taking it. So again, we leave the clinic without any answers. He did order a test to check out his small intestine (I can't remember what it's called right now) just to make sure the problems aren't there. We head down to Radiology to schedule it and are told the next available appt is Sept 10th. We're supposed to leave the 3rd and really don't feel like hanging around an extra week just for this test. So we head back up to talk to the dr and he's going to call the Radiologist and see if we can't get it done sooner. If not we'll do a different test. So once again we are playing the waiting game with no answers in sight. You have NO idea how frustrating this is getting. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Why can't someone just give us some answers?!?! So that's been our trip so far. I'll let ya know if we find anything else out. 
