Saturday April 28, 2007

We arrived in Kyiv on time, 8:44am. We quickly left the train and jumped into two cabs. Off to the Industry for Oil for the physicals. I do not understand why the building has this name because it is actually a hospital. Asa, our translator, told us that is was a very nice hospital. It was old according to US standards.

Luba went over some paperwork with some of the staff prior to the MD seeing the children. The physicians spoke moderate english but the support staff did not. At least they did not try to speak english. Matt went first. His medical records from the orphanage are in poor shape. They do not show any polio vacincations. The MD could not believe this because it is given with other injections that he had received. Then one MD wrote that he had TB. I sawed the results of this skin tests in the file and argued that if he had TB, the readings would not be normal. The MD was surprised at this. I just wanted to understand if a misdiagnosis could have taken place. She agreed with me. She pointed our a few things such as scrapes and his tonsils. She continued to say that I could treat them "focally." After 5 focallys, I asked if she meant locally. In the US. She said yes. The MD had Matt read and was going to write developementally delayed. But after speaking to him, she decided not to write this because his verbal skins were quick and sharp. She stated that he was neglected because no one read to him. He can come around and seems clever. Just give him one on one attention or time.

Maria was next. The MD had her read. She is a good reader. But she failed the eye exam. I explained that we took he to get her eyes checked. I also gave the MD the prescription since I wondered if she understood what I was trying to communicate. She just smiled and said, "good job." Maria just wanted out of the office without any injections. She could not get dressed fast enough and out to the hallway. All was fine with Maria and Matt.

I waved the vaccinations. We will take care of that at home where record keeping is better. We need to get to the MD within 30 days of returning home.

After both kids left the room, the MD started thanking me for adopting them. She explained that she does both pre and post adoption exams and wanted me to know how lucky these kids are. 1. Not to be left on the street some day. 2. to have parents to teach them 3. to go to the United States to live. So many Ukrainians would like to be in their place. She also stated that I will be a good mother because I will argue for my children. She had me in tears and hugged me.

After the physicals, we took a taxi to the apt. The apt is nice and new. Great location in the center of the city. Two concerns. The protestors have a huge stage about 20 yards from our windows. The second, no washing machine. Julie and I were counting on a washing machine.
Oh well. We can survive. We are almost home.

We took over the apt and them went to a park for a walk to get the wiggles out of the kids. This park had a small amusement parks with rides. The children rode a few rides and enjoyed them. After dinner, we let them play on the apartment's playground until the rain started.