Yesterday I started getting sick again--my throat began to feel very painful, and I began to feel feverish. I've grown skeptical of the intelligence and competency of the doctor I have been seeing, who doesn't really examine me, doesn't take my temperature, and who doesn't ask me many questions. I enter her office, she says, "what's wrong?" I desribe my symptoms, she says "open your mouth" (from across the desk) and then declares "Oh, yes. It's strep throat." So today I went to the American Hospital in Paris to see what I hoped would be an American doctor.
I hoped that I would feel reassured by the familiar American hospital setting, full of American doctors...As it turns out, a good majority of the doctors are French, as are the patients, and the hospital looks nothing like an American hospital. For that matter, it isn't run like an American hospital, either. You have to pay in advance for the services (in my case, medical exam and visit, blood test and throat culture), but you have to pay in cash.
"Cash?" I asked, stunned.
"Yes. But I see you've already been to a doctor here in Paris--I'm sure you payed in cash then, too?"
"I did. I just thought this would be different since it's a hospital, and it's called "The American" hospital. I thought it would be more like an American hospital."
"Eh non."
The ATM was empty and therefore out of service...because everyone in the hospital has to pay cash. And there was only one in the entire facility.
I was instructed at the welcome desk that there was an ATM not far away, only about 10 minutes away, in Neuilly. So with my fever and my aching throat and my eyes watering and my scarf wrapped around my head, I went: down the hill over the bridge across the main boulevard took a right at the light then passed the bus stop to turn right at the next light to finally find the ATM (which, incidentally, instantly displayed an Out of Order announcement after I used it. I wonder where the next closest one is...).
The doctor 50 or 60, very French and made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't tell if it was because he was a little bit of a lecherous older man, or because I wasn't accustomed to be looked at in such a...kind, smiling way while being examined. I'm accustomed to the doctor looking more at his charts than at me, and am certainly not accustomed to being patted on the back and being told, softly "Ne vous en faites pas, mademoiselle. Je vais m'occuper de vous--tout ira mieux dans quelques jours. Oh, ma pauvre." (don't worry, miss. I'm going to take care of you--everything will be better in a couple of days. Oh, my poor thing).
Anyway, he has presribed me with yet another round of antibiotics (this being round three). He explained to me that infections in France are harder to treat than in the US (where, as it turned out, he worked for 14 years), because French doctors prescribe too liberally antibiotics to people who don't need them. When it comes time to treat a truly ill person, the "bactéries" have become very resistent to normal antibiotics. All of that was to say that he thinks I have had the same strep throat the whole time, but that it couldn't being eliminated by the "weaker" (his word) antibiotics. He says the other doctor should have known from the beginning. He also says he's convinced that it will work this time and that I will be in tip top shape by Monday.
If not...I'll be a disaster.
I'm going to bed now, but if you have medical opinions, or words of comfort, please don't hesitate to call. I'm not very happy today.
(photo is of american hospital)
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