Help me get home safely!

Hello everyone!

My name is Sarah and I'm a graduate student from the US currently working on my dissertation in Croatia. My flight home in August goes through Istanbul, and if you have been paying attention to the news the last few weeks, it's not exactly the safest place to be going through right now. Although the FAA has once again allowed flights through Ataturk airport, the recent bombing and military coup hasn't left me with a lot of confidence in traveling through the area. So, I'm doing what was advised of me, and looking for alternative accomodations.

My ticket through Turkish Airlines is non-refundable, and since the FAA has agreed to continue flights, they are not offering refunds for tickets at all. However, because of the safety concern, they have agreed to wave the cancellation fee, so cancelling my ticket will not cost me anything. 

I've been looking for alternative routes that will cost the least and it appear as though taking a bus from Zagreb to Vienna ($30) and then a one way flight back to Chicago ($400) will be the most cost effective option since flights from Zagreb itself are significantly more expensive. I'm just looking for any help that can be given. I hate asking for help, but because of recent funding decisions I'm paying for my dissertation research completely out of pocket, so all of my measley graduate student paycheck is going towards traveling back and forth to Croatia a couple of times a year to get this data collected and there isn't a lot of room in my budget for big emergencies such as this one. 

So I would be eternally grateful for any sort of help that can be given. 

Thanks for reading!