Diary of Evacuation & Vacation to Helsinki

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Med Evac

Saturday, July 21, 2001

Part 1 -- Evacuation

Dear Friends and Family,

"Med Evac". The phrase conjures up images of ambulances, sirens, stretchers and dripping IV bottles. You know, M.A.S.H. stuff. A week ago, we found out it's not necessarily so. And now we will share a real bad-news/good-news story.

Some time ago, Marianne went in for her "annual" checkup. We've been less than completely rigorous about this sort of thing here, maybe because we don't want to find out anything. Anyway, her mammography had "indications" according to the local doctor. She wanted more tests, including tissue removal. Marianne wrote her doctor in California for advice and sent along x-rays. The California doctors basically agreed that there was something worthy of closer examination and, as both a friend and responsible professional, Marianne's California doctor said "come here, where I can be sure you get good care".

This is where "Med Evac" comes in. We have insurance that will fly us out of the country if such a move is recommended by the local doctor and agreed to by the insurance company doctor. Our local clinic doctor did investigate the local specialists and said "leave". The insurance company doctor was even more emphatic at saying Ukraine did not have reliable diagnostic specialists so leaving was the only option. She did however say that it's the insurance company which decides where the medical treatment is given and for this procedure, they had found a particular doctor and clinic in Helsinki, Finland that they highly recommended. The insurance doctor was quite convincing and so, with her help, we set about "evacuating" in time for examination on Thursday and, if needed, surgery on Monday.

Now a simple air flight from Kyiv to Helsinki involves a couple flights and quite a bit of money. The money mattered because insurance doesn't cover the travel of spouses, no matter how worried they are. Instead, we decided to fly to Tallinn, Estonia and take a boat over to Helsinki. So, last Wednesday, we took our normal trip to the airport - no ambulance, siren, etc. The short hop to Tallinn was pleasant and we decided to stay there for the night because the doctor appointment was not until the next afternoon. About a year ago we had visited Tallinn for a couple days and concluded something like "Nice place. Worth a few days. Not necessary to come back." Some things we don't plan I guess.

Thursday morning, we walked from the hotel over to the boat.(Picture #01). We selected a "fast boat" so the trip would be just an our and a half instead of the four hours the larger ferries take. There are eight or ten departures a day between Tallinn and Helsinki and our trip aboard the Tallink Auto Express jet-boat (Picture #02) was quick, peaceful, roomy and, more like vacation instead of evacuation. Good time to talk too but we'd already been doing a lot of that over the last several days.

From the ferry terminal we took a taxi to the downtown Road Trip office for hotel recommendations. This is all part of the travel-without-reservations approach we have adopted and once again it worked out. They recommended a nice enough place, not too expensive and near our destination - the Sairaais Mehilainen Rontgen Poliklinikka at Pehj Hesperiankatu 17. Now, tell the truth, did any of you figure out how to pronounce our destination? We didn't. Fortunately, no visitor is expected to be able to speak Finnish and therefore English is the language in common. We even noticed Finns speaking among themselves in English so it must be as hard to use as it appears. And don't use that story about "related to Hungarian" because our Hungarian did not recognize a single word.

Anyway, we found our hotel and then the radiology clinic. Five minutes later, Marianne was led away by the radiologist and I was left to think. To tell you the truth, Marianne and I handle pending or potential bad news very differently. Marianne thinks. I block thought. Professionally, I think and plan for bad news all the time. (Nuclear safety and licensing engineer for Chornobyl "Shelter", remember?) Personally, I'm as dense as a tree-trunk if I don't want to know about problems ahead and so it had been for several days.

A half-hour after she left, Marianne returned. "There is nothing wrong. The radiologist says everything is normal. Guaranteed." That news in hand, we visited the surgeon and he both confirmed the reliability of the radiologist and, after his own examination, said the same: "You're fine, go have a glass or two of wine."

Amazing. In just a few minutes, our lives had been rearranged again. All is in order. I felt far luckier than I deserved to be because we know others who have had different results. But when Marianne walked out that hospital (Picture #03) we knew we had indeed shifted from evacuation to vacation.

Part 2 - Vacation

Now that we were in Helsinki for vacation, what do we do for fun? As much as we could squeeze in. In no particular order, here's some fun shots:

We rode "Tram #3". The public transportation options in Helsinki vary from a modern underground Metro, busses, trams and even bicycles. Tram #3 was particularly fun because it circles downtown and is the cheapest tour bus around.

We rode buses. Marianne tried to drive this one but fortunately the driver showed up in time.

We ate. We've been doing too much of this lately but how could we pass up a place specializing in garlic?

We walked along the harbor. I was fascinated by this huge Carnival Lines cruise ship undergoing completion or renovation at a shipyard that's in the center of town. Throughout our trip we had seen big boats but this was the biggest.

We looked at cars. Back in America, we had once ordered a Porsche Boxster. Now that we were in Finland where they are assembled, we found ourselves in a car dealer showroom "kicking the tires". No, we did not buy this car.

We toured castles. Well, at least one "castle". On Sunday, we rented a car and drove to Hanko, the southernmost town in Finland. Along the way, we visited a famous Finnish country house. Our guide said it had been the house of the richest man in Finland at the beginning of the 20th Century. It was nice but simple compared to castles in Western Europe or even in Russia.

We ate. Continuously. This beach front resort dinning room seemed to fit our style. How could we pas up "free flowing food".

So, what's the lesson here? Visit Helsinki and Finland. It's a friendly, interesting and easy tourist destination. That's the Part 2 lesson.

The Part 1 lesson is to use the time you've got. It's the trip that matters.

Stay in touch. Write if you can.

John and Marianne

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Sent July 23, 2001.

This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.

	We rode "Tram #3". The public transportation options in Helsinki vary from a modern underground Metro, busses, trams and even bicycles. Tram #3 was particularly fun because it circles downtown and is the cheapest tour bus around.
	We rode buses. Marianne tried to drive this one but fortunately the driver showed up in time.
	We ate. We've been doing too much of this lately but how could we pass up a place specializing in garlic?
	We walked along the harbor. I was fascinated by this huge Carnival Lines cruise ship undergoing completion or renovation at a shipyard that's in the center of town. Throughout our trip we had seen big boats but this was the biggest.
	We looked at cars. Back in America, we had once ordered a Porsche Boxster. Now that we were in Finland where they are assembled, we found ourselves in a car dealer showroom "kicking the tires". No, we did not buy this car.
	We toured castles. Well, at least one "castle". On Sunday, we rented a car and drove to Hanko, the southernmost town in Finland. Along the way, we visited a famous Finnish country house. Our guide said it had been the house of the richest man in Finland at the beginning of the 20th Century. It was nice but simple compared to castles in Western Europe or even in Russia.
	We ate. Continuously. This beach front resort dinning room seemed to fit our style. How could we pas up "free flowing food".