What's "Doctor" in french
Having lived for less than a year in Mozambique and just over a year now in France, I can officially say that I am an expert at all things living abroad. So if you were looking for the top tier information on how to successfully move, live, and most importantly thrive, in a new country, then some (those some being my parents and possibly an old neighbor of mine) may say “you have found the golden source.” Throw away all those New York Times best sellers on traveling in style. I am your source now.
One of the areas of expertise that I most enjoy chatting with strangers about is my slew of international medical knowledge. Currently, there is only one certified doctor in my family, and that person just happens to be my older brother; however, when it comes to talking about weird ailments that may arise in and on your body while in strange lands, I believe I may actually beat my brother in expertise just in this area. Don’t believe me? Well, let me just take the next few minutes to delve in my living abroad medical knowledge.
The first time I lived away from the United States, my husband and I were part of ministry school. More on that debacle later. While at the school, a strange bump formed on one of my upper butt cheeks. I, like most of you, have only two but cheeks, but its important to note that I have a long butt and this bump was towards the very top, so on a normal sized butt person, it could of actually been on ones back, so I just told someone “yea, got a bump on my lower back.” I sought the help of a fellow student who was also a nurse. She followed me into the communal, dimly- lit bathroom. I pulled my long skirt and tights, that were required by said ministry school, down to reveal the “lower back” bump to this innocent lady. She took one look and said it was probably just a large pimple from the excessive sweating combined with excessive clothing combined with bucket baths with contaminated water and that I should be zero percent concerned. So, I survived my first encounter with medicine abroad. She and I parted ways only to see each other almost daily for the next month. It’s like the time I found out my new gynecologist was also the mom to one of my son’s basketball teammates. I sure know how to pick them.
A few weeks later, I found my sweet (and very sweaty) self at the door of the clinic of this same ministry school because, again, I found myself with an odd little bump. This time the bump was on the outside of my right ankle; however, this bump was…alive. Yes, the lovely thing about traveling to new places in the world is that occasionally you will encounter the critters that live there as well. In Pemba, Mozambique, there can be some cute little worms in the water or in the sand. One of these little guys decided he wanted to live in an American’s ankle for a few days just to get a little taste of our rampant patriotism. I am confident that he would have liked to live there for a good long while, possibly doubling in size and really creating a nice space for himself, maybe getting some of those succulents all the young little worms are buying up these days. These plans did not sit right with me and I entered the clinic with one thing in mind: cut this critter out and do with him what you wish. And that they did.
After encountering two back to back body bumps, I knew it was time for me to experience the inevitable part of traveling and living somewhere new: bathroom bonus time. Now sure, we all have had our share of bathroom bonus time technically known as traveler’s diarrhea. Honestly, if you’ve been anywhere where the sun never stops shining and the drinks have cute little umbrellas to keep themselves safe from the rain, then you may have encountered some bathroom bonus time yourself. Or maybe you have one of the many digestive diseases that seem to really thrive in our GMO-laden lands and bathroom bonus time is actually just your normal life, well then cheers to you mate because we are cut from the same cloth. For its commonality and just overall lack of joy that it brings, I will leave out all my abroad bathroom stories for now, but I cannot promise that they won’t rear their little heads in the future in all their nasty glory. Consider yourself warned.
Moving on. After a brief holiday stint back in the US of A and an equally brief attempt (success) at making a whole human, we returned back to Mozambique with a secret passenger in tow. She was a tiny one. Just five weeks young on the inside, but boy, would she make for some interesting times when one tries to work an actual job in a foreign land. Fortunately for both her and I, every 3-4 weeks we had to cross the Mozambique/South Africa border to get a cute little stamp on our visas and stock up on Nando’s Chicken at the mall. Since this was my common path, I used these little trips to start prenatal care in South Africa. Now as a human who had never been pregnant and had rarely frequented a doctors office, having a large scope with a camera on the end stuck up my lady parts every few weeks by an older, South African doctor did not quite line up with all the things I had envisioned for that first pregnancy. Although, I welcomed the bill of $100 and free pics of a tiny human after every single visit, I still found myself wondering how this whole giving birth thing was going to pan out. I learned quickly that when the time arrived to actually birth this human I was growing, I would have to decide where that joyous and beyond painful event would take place. I had three enticing options: in Mozambique where they do not offer epidurals and often knock the mother out if the baby gets stuck in any way; in South Africa with my current doctor which would require arriving at a timely manor before babies arrival which one could only guess at; or back in the good old USA at location unknown because we had moved all our goodies out of California and had no place to call home. Being that this was my first birth and that there was already a running list of unknowns, I decided to give my first born the gift of being a Hoosier, returning to birth her not only in my home state, but in the same exact hospital where I myself was born. She thanks me daily for this gift of Hoosier-ness. She bleeds corn and casseroles. She’s my Indiana girl.
A brief reflection on US health care: once while visiting California for a wedding, our 7 week old developed a strange cough so at midnight in the middle of San Francisco, our tax paying selves sleepily rushed to the emergency department to make sure her tiny little lungs were okay. Before even sitting our butts in the chair, we had to dish out $1000 being that were “out of state” and therefore not California insured. Now, as former California residents, I felt tempted to call in reinforcements by way of my old address, my old telephone number, and my long list of severed relationships as we relatively abruptly moved away six years prior, to see if that could help my case and get that bill lowered to a more reasonable $550. My claim did not even enter the airwaves before I was denied, then ushered to the back amongst the white coats who preceded to tell me nothing was wrong (thank god of course but not the point of this story) and tell me the bill is in the mail in one short breath. In the end, it cost us over $2000 to check on each tiny lung in the far away land of California. Dear Government of the United States of America, please stop exploring outer space for an alternate planet for us humans to dwell on once this one is past destroyed and please provide free healthcare to your people right now, love, a concerned former (but tax paying still) citizen of the land.
Back on track: eight years later we would find ourselves living abroad again, this time with three grown-ish humans in tow. Even though four out of five of us speak the native tongue, we still had a hard time wrapping our minds around the whole find a good doctor thing. But do not worry, after many a failed encounter, I am still not that golden expert you have been seeking on this subject, but I hope to offer some tips of how to make the process smoother for you.
First time playing the find a doctor game in Paris was when the kids needed clearance to play sports. My husband booked them at the closest doctor office to our new place. For some reason still unknown to me, he was unable to take them, so because I am also a parent in this duo, the responsibility fell on me to take them to said appointment. Now granted, my frame of reference for a doctors office for kids is purely the pediatrician’s office in America, which is full of bright colors, kids books, and germs. Lots and lots of germs. In American doctors offices, all the meds are hid behind cabinets and in locked rooms. When I tell you we walked into this French doctors office and found a stark room with no greeter or how do non-church folks call them? Oh yes, no receptionist in sight. We waited for the actual doctor to open the door to the room that was an office, exam room, and open air storage for all things medical. I felt as though I stepped into an episode of hoarders. Boxes and boxes were stacked filled with paperwork and smaller boxes of medicine. The kids were each asked a series of questions and then the most basic of medical check ups was done. We proceeded to give the hoarder, I mean doctor, a wad of cash and we left with three sheets of paper certifying our ability to sport it up in France. I now was convinced that although socialism gives access to free healthcare for residents, it also means all doctors offices would also look like your parents storage closet. I for one will trade sterile and expensive for seemingly “free” and possibly a contagious situation any day. Turns out though, not all doctor’s offices smell like cat pee and wet cardboard.
This leads to my first tip:
1. Do not just book any doctor. Here in France we have a fancy app called DoctoLib in which one can find a doctor of any type. I do not recall how we learned of this app, but it has been both a gift and a curse. A gift for the obvious reasons: when you do not really know anyone in a new city, finding a new doctor for even the smallest of things can be a major challenge. However, DoctoLib does not work like Yelp, which is a bummer and smells of such a good opportunity for any app developer out there. Remember to site me when you release that app. There are no reviews for the doctors. None. When I go to book with a new doc, I start by looking in my neighborhood and then I check to see if they speak English because not only is my French poor, but I am also rather terrible in English when it comes to medical terminology. Only one child in the family can be medically literate. That’s what my art teacher told me. FYI: a doctors proximity to your home and ability to speak your native tongue does not automatically make them a good doctor. You will have a few misses when finding someone new, but to your advantage is that unless you move to England or various places in Asia, that doctor is sure to cost less money then in America and for that, you have won. On one occasion, I booked a return trip to see a wonderful chiropractor I found with my two markers: close by and English-speaking. The doctor nicelycalled me to let me know that she would need to reschedule and then she proceeded to congratulate me on my pregnancy except I am not pregnant. I led with a thank you and then said “wait, I am not pregnant.” She then informed me that I had booked a pregnant person appointment instead of booking a returning person appointment. That dang French language got me again! I also booked in with a gynecologist following an initial meeting with a general practice doc where she advised me to head to a gyno office to address my issue of the season. I sat in the waiting room for over an hour only to find out she was the wrong doctor for my particular ailment and that she spoke zero words of English. You win some, but you will probably lose a lot more.
2. Learn to be extra patient mainly with yourself, but also with the approximately two million other humans who you live amongst. Add into that the language and cultural differences and you are sure to find yourself in a recipe intended to create extreme discomfort and daily difficulty. I came into our move too naïve and I am daily having to be more and more patient with the people pleasing side of myself: the side that can discourage language learning and asking for help; and the hermit, introvert side of myself: the side that can shut out the world and unplug from reality while watching 1000 YouTube videos about car detailing. Whoops, starting to sound like another uneducated and mouthy online therapist, but seriously, learn to practice the lost art of patience. This one is very difficult for Americans as we are a RIGHT NOW bunch thanks to Amazon and Google and the sort, but you have to learn to be counter-cultural. Go into things with lower and slower expectations and you are sure to be surprised or at the least, not as disappointed.
So yes, tips like “don’t just book any doctor” and “be patient” may seem obvious, but what happens when you experience a surprise ailment in a new place? When living in Mozambique, we did a fair amount of driving, but once we moved to Paris, I had to depend on my first form of transport, my trusty feet. Thanks to my dear parents, I have above average feet length and way above average toe length, which makes things like finding shoes and taking a casual walkabout about as the English say a bit more stressful for me. Also, although many parts of my body are nicely padded in case I need to bunker down in a cave for the winter months, my feet are very bony, narrow, and padding-free. Luckily for her, I passed down the same magical canoe-like feet to my daughter. She was complaining of foot and leg pain due to unsupported high arches. One day when doing another painful walkabout, I spotted a street level office filled with a bunch of French words that I guessed meant foot doctor. I did some research and confirmed my spotty language guess was right. I booked my daughter in for an appointment so that she could be the guinea pig. At her first appointment, we met a young foot doctor who again appeared to have a knack for hoarding. He seemed to know what he was doing though and in his little back office, he hand made her a set of inserts which saved her little legs and feet from continual pain. So after seeing that success with my own child, I booked back in for myself. Now this doctor checked one box: he was very close to our house; however, he spoke zero English. So there I was trying to explain my foot pain in very broken French and yet still, he worked his magic and made me perfect inserts to alleviate my issues. Now my trusty walkabout on these two transporters is significantly more comfortable.
This brings me to my final tip:
3. Expect the unexpected. If you have ever moved anywhere whether its down the block from where you grew up or across an ocean, you are aware that with a move, comes movement, and with that comes the inevitable changes. Change is a valuable tool used to make even the most confident, self assured, prepared human feel like that are falling on their face. You can do all the research and feel like you’ve covered all the bases, but changes in regards to your health or the health of your loved ones can alter in a moment. This is not written to scare anyone. It’s just simple fact. The environment, no matter how foreign or familiar, can shift our lives quickly and often without warning. No matter how much cough medicine I buy for my kids in the United States to bring back, I will inevitably need something different come cold season. No matter how many DayQuil/NyQuil boxes I buy, I will only ever use the NyQuil as a sleep aid, only taking the DayQuil as a compliment to my anxiety meds when the in-laws are in town. Sometimes, life will even surprise you in good ways. In the US, going to the dentist was so anxiety filled for me that I would need a sedative to make it through. In Paris, adult sedation is not common and so these days I opt for a quarter THC gummy and my cunning ability to laugh through the pain. I recently went in for a cleaning and at the end my dentist said words I have never heard before: “You have excellent oral hygenine and do not need to return for another 10-12 months.” Either he was lying to me or he forgot the word for decent and replaced it instead with excellent. Does not matter to me because I left on cloud nine and immediately went for a candy run to celebrate my crowning achievement. See, expect the unexpected.
Now, of course there are a slew of other medical knowledge I have learned in my time abroad. Here’s a quick few thoughts: Thai massage treats bruxism, anxiety, and the common cold; France requires even more vaccines for kids then the US which was SHOCKING; Botox is expensive, but is also a great treatment for bruxism and increased cheekage from the bread, Advil is cheaper in France, even without the illusive card vital, going to the doctor and filling prescriptions is way less then the US here in France, and finally, you will wait FOREVER at the doctor’s office because that is just life. Bring a book and pretend you are at a Parisian Cafe minus the cigarettes and actual caffeine.
Check back for my next tip filled post. I will tons of tips about how to beat depression with puzzles and more solid advice for combatting those Winter…Spring…Summer…and of no, its Fall again Blues.
Remember, BE blessed.
