But for today, I thought I would talk about something that I was hoping NOT to have to do while I was here; go to the doctor.
I got sick back in October after my trip to Barcelona where we stayed in a 10 bed hostel room that cost 8euro a night (not my choice, guys!). But at least I came home with a cold and not bed bugs, am I right?
I'm right.
After that first week of being really sick, I started to get better. And, as usual, I had a lingering cough that wouldn't go away. For the past month I've had the same cold off and on - it gets better, then it gets worse, but the cough always remains. Always.
So finally after waking myself up 3 times last night because I was coughing in my sleep (sorry, roommate) I decided to see a French doctor.
I already had an advantage over most sick, struggling Americans in France because I didn't have to do any research on doctors in Aix or make my own appointment - CEA, my study abroad program, did that all for me. I was told to show up at 2pm and ask for Dr. Somny, and that's what I did.
Pro-tip: You don't need to show up early for a doctor's appointment here because there's no waiting room paperwork to fill out, even if you're a first time client. Also, the doctor is likely to be either running late with a previous client or (as in my case) returning late from a 2 and a half hour lunch break. I know, right?
I didn't have to wait too long though; by 2:15 she was ready to see me. She took my name, my birth date, and my email address. Then, we talked symptoms. I had already made sure (thanks google) that I knew how to describe all of my symptoms, but luckily she asked a lot of leading questions so I didn't have to rely on my own memory very much. There was also a lot of miming and charades-playing until she realized that I understood everything that she was saying.
We did the usual heart rate and blood pressure - interestingly enough, it's a bit opposite of how they do things in the US. At my GP in the US they take your blood pressure by machine, and your heart rate manually. Here the doctor used a little finger-clip machine to take my heart rate and did the blood pressure cuff manually. I'm not sure why that stood out to me, but it did.
Finally, she listened to my lungs since my main complaint was the ever present cough.
Afterward, she explained to me (still in French, mind you) what she thought was wrong, and what she didn't think was wrong - probably to ease my Web-MDing mind (do I have lung cancer? No).
Then, she started to write me some scripts and she suggested three things: 1, a simple nasal spray to be picked up at the pharmacy. 2, a blood test to rule out anything serious. 3, a chest X-ray to rule out anything even more serious.
Here, I paused. She asked if I needed her to repeat what she'd said, if I was confused.
No, I said...But I knew I had to pay for everything up front before I could submit claims to my insurance company for reimbursement, and I wasn't sure if I could afford a chest X-ray out of pocket. In the US, you could be paying anywhere upwards of $300 for something like that.
Quickly, she said, "Oh no! French medicine is cheap! Don't worry. It will probably be 15, 20 euro."
15 or 20 euro for a chest X-ray without insurance?! As if I needed another reason to move to Europe, sign me up!
In reality, it ended up being 35euro, and since I've lived this long and had this problem before without getting a chest X ray, I opted out of that. She agreed, it was just precautionary.
So she wrote out two scripts, one for the medicine and one for the blood test. (Side note, it took me three tries to spell medicine correctly in English - the curse of learning a second language.)
Then, another interesting thing I noted was that you pay the doctor directly in the exam room, rather than paying at the reception desk. In the US, I can't imagine doing this - American doctors would probably think that 1) they're above that task and 2) it would be a waste of their time. Although, maybe this is why French doctors are always running behind.
I left the doctor's office and went straight to the lab to get my blood work done, and was told that for a basic test it would be 20 euro. For a Whooping Cough test, which my doctor had suggested for some crazy reason, it would be an additional 35euro because they would have to send the blood all the way to Paris to be tested.
I'm pretty confident that I don't have Whooping Cough, so I opted out of that one, too, and paid the 20 euro for a basic test which I'm almost positive will also come back absolutely normal.
Finally, I hopped over to the pharmacy (to give you an idea - the doctor's office address is 19 Cours Mirabeau, the lab was 15 Cours Mirabeau, and the Pharmacy was in between the two) and picked up the medicine the doctor had ordered.
All in all it took less than an hour, probably around 45 minutes in total (mostly because of a language barrier at the Blood Lab - sorry I don't speak much medical French!) and all the combined costs (57euro) will be reimbursed next month by my insurance.
If I had been on my own to find a doctor and make an appointment, the process probably would have been a lot more difficult. And if I had done all the suggested tests/procedures, my bill would have been double what it was. I have a feeling that the French like to be thorough simply because everything is so cheap if you do have insurance. All in all, I found the doctor very thorough and hope to finally be on the mend once and for all.
Although, if it turns out that I'm dying based on the results of my blood work, I'll let you know.
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