It was on July 8, 2021, that I was able to leave the Philippines, but I never came to write about, because I ended up in the hospital.
Let me start with the beginning...
If you stay long in the Philippines, then you need to pay immigration a lot to leave and if you are longer than six months in the Philippines, then you even need a permit to leave.
Good that the Belgian Embassy helped with endorsement letters, or I needed to wait weeks every time I wanted an immigration appointment.
Driving from Embassy to Immigration a few times; It took me anyway more than a month to finally arrange the bunch of documents I needed on July 8 to leave.
And with the crazy coronavirus, I had changed my ticket already 3 times.
being back in Portugal during the first days
In the Philippines, I became very sick. That happened already two years ago. Only when I arrived in Europe and ended up in the hospital, they discovered that I have the Klebsiella bacteria. And with me it went into my right lung, what made a hole.
I first arrived in Portugal, where I was before I went to the Philippines. Lisbon - Cascais.
With pain in my lung, I ended up in the hospital from Cascais. After weeks of being there, they discovered the bacteria. I started to bleed out of my lung.
After many antibiotics and a few weeks of hospital, the bleeding stopped and I thought everything would be okay. But No; A few days later it started all over.
Not knowing what to do, I decided to take the flight to Belgium. There I went to the hospital in the city of Aalst, where they did the whole investigation again. But I needed to stay a whole month, since I got the coronavirus. Yes, in the hospital.
When I left that hospital I stayed over in an old man's home. Very expensive and in the middle of no were. Then the bleeding in my lung started again and I became sicker than ever before.
A friend of mine told me to go to the university hospital in the city of Leuven.
Good I did, because if they couldn't help me, then no any hospital could. Well, that was my opinion at that time.
They promised me that I could stay till it was for sure that the bacteria was gone. But 'No'; After two weeks they asked me to leave because the hospital was overfull and I was okay. That is what they told me.
on the airplane from Belgium back to Portugal
Back to the old man's place was the only solution. There I stayed two more weeks since I discovered that the boss and his wife had been in jail. I booked immediately a flight to Portugal. This time not to Lisbon, but to the South; The Algarve.
The flight went from Brussels to Frankfurt in Germany. From there to Faro.
I always wanted to be in Albufeira, a very nice city over there. I even found a place for rent, but once I arrived, the guy told me that he didn't want to rent to people in a wheelchair.
It was already late and the neighbor from the house I would rent told me that there was an abandoned house near his place. He gave me the idea to stay over there for the night.
I did and it was very creepy. A house that's for sure ten years without someone living in it. But he was friendly; Installed a kind of bed and a heather.
The morning after I ended up in Faro in a very cheap guesthouse. On the phone, they told me that it was totally wheelchair accessible. On arrival, it wasn't that way and they told me I only could stay for one night. A room with six bunk beds. Two other people and me.
the trainstation from Evora, waiting on the train to Lisbon
The morning after the social aid who I did inform called me with the words that an ambulance would pick me up and would bring me to a very wheelchair-friendly hostel in the city of Evora.
Only at midnight, an ambulance arrived. They told me that they drove from Lisbon to there. And to get in Evora it took them 3 hours.
On arrival, the discovery was totally a sad fact. I really didn't know why they had brought me there. A few stairs; the toilet I couldn't enter and the worst... There was n heather and it was about six degrees celsius. Terrible.
After one week in this terrible place, I took the train to Lisbon. There a friend came to pick me up at the train station. I stayed ten days with her and tried to find me something for rent.
There really wasn't anything wheelchair accessible. So I started to search for other cities. In Porto, I found a room with a private bathroom and even specially build for wheelchairs to enter. I took the train and left for Porto.
A very nice place with very friendly people and where I am still till today. But the start was bad. After a few days, I went ill again and ended up calling an ambulance.
I was there for about eight days and signed a paper to leave when my new lung bleeding stopped. What a terrible hospital that was. Such an unfriendly people and what a bad service. I had never seen this in my whole life. I think I can compare it with a kind of hospital about one hundred years ago. I even couldn't go to the comfort room, so they told me to shit in a diaper. Really so disgusting. It even gave me some nightmares afterward.
a few days before I left the Philippines
Now, being one month later and still being in my little but so nice room I still take antibiotics, but no more lung bleeding (till now). I do hope it stay that way. I am over thin, but I hope it all will become alright one day. I take life day by day and I am very worried about how this illness gonna end up. The klebsiella pneumonia bacteria is very hard to destroy.
I know I better had left the Philippines before. But the start of the coronavirus kept me away from that possibility. Anyway, this is in a short version of how I returned back to Europe from the Philippines out.
