will WE play in Peoria?

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I’ve been meaning to call and make doctor appointments for Kaitlyn and myself to get check ups, so that we’d have each gone to a doctor one time when well. I pushed that off my to-do list* too many times and today I had to find a doctor to examine a sick little girl.

            Yesterday afternoon, Kaitlyn felt warm to me. While she always feels warm to me, this time it seemed more so than usual. So I took her temperature and – voila – I was right. She had a fever. I had some children’s Tylenol I brought from the U.S. so I gave it to her and waited to see if that worked. It did but the fever came back. And she woke up this morning burning hot. Bill took her temperature and reported it to be 102. But on his way out the door to work he told me it was up to me if she should go to a doctor.

            In the United States, going to the doctor is a hassle. But I know how it works. You call, you beg for an appointment today because your child is sick. No, her regular doctor doesn’t have any openings until April. How about this other doctor? Fine, as long as he or she has a medical degree. Ok. Be at the office at 11am. You show your insurance card that they’ve made 106 copies of so they can make the 107th. You sit and wait. A nurse calls Kaitlyn’s name, you go in and she gets weighed and measured. You go onto the actual exam room where you sit and wait. They know what they are doing when they design doctor’s offices. There is no clock in the exam room. You now have no idea how long you have been sitting there, except that you have read the same insect book a dozen times. Finally, the doctor comes in. There’s some pleasant small talk. You tell him what Kaitlyn’s symptoms are and answer his questions. He looks at her, listens to her with the stethoscope, looks in her ears and at her throat, writes you a prescription and sends you off to the cashier to pay. $25 please. After hours? Make that $45. Another $10 or so per prescription and you’re done.

            In France, I’m lost. I don’t know the system. Oh, sure, I found out in Paris that you can call 15 and they’ll assess your problem and decide what you should do. (In my case, they sent a doctor to our hotel. It was the night after I fell on my arm getting off the elevator. He told me to hold my arm like Napoleon then gave me a shot of morphine and left with his 100 euros.)

            I knew there’s a doctor in Uriage (at the bottom of the hill) who speaks some English and some of the other ISE’s use him when they’re sick. I called someone for his name, but just got her answering machine. After calmly leaving her a message, I called Bill and freaked out. I broke out in tears. The idea of figuring out the French non-emergency medical system was more than I could face alone at 7:45am without my morning coffee. He promised to ask around the office for help. I’m thinking, that’s nice but dad’s just don’t know this stuff so he’s going to ask two people, get frustrated, and go back to working at his actual job. Luckily, I got a call back with the information I needed. And even luckier, Fridays is one of the days that Dr. Fortier doesn’t accept appointments; it’s all done on a walk-in basis.

            Thank goodness I’d been given a good description of just going to the office. You have to walk around back of the building… find the outer door with his name on it.. press the buzzer to open the door (why have a buzzer if pressing it automatically opens the door in the first place?)… then his office is in the back. Go in but be careful which door you chose next. There is one that says “interdit” that is his actual exam room/office don’t go in there. There’s one that says “salon de something-er-other” that is the waiting room. Kaitlyn and I got to his office a little after 9. He opened at 8:30 and the waiting room was already full.

            No one took a number or sat in the order in which they came in. Everyone just remembered who was next. When the doctor would finish with a patient, he’d walk down the hallway and open the door to the waiting room, whoever’s turn it was would stand up and go with him, shaking his hand and saying bonjour as they went. A basket of legos and plastic horses along with some children’s books kept Kaitlyn fairly entertained for the hour and a half or so that we waited. I flipped through a couple of magazines but, still not having had any coffee, I just wasn’t up to trying to translate enough to really get anything out of it. The second one I picked up which was about skiing in the French Alps had some real potential for handy information, until I realized it was two years old.

            Finally, the doctor opened the door and it was our turn. Everyone else was ready to go when they were supposed to. I, of course, had to fish around for our coats and my purse and put junk away that Kaitlyn had been playing with. We followed the doctor into the room behind the door marked “interdit.” It was an office – bookcases, a desk, wood floor. I sat in a leather chair and, after explaining “je ne parle pas bien francais,” I tried to explain the problem. Kaitlyn est malade. Elle tousse. Elle a une fievre. I dug in my pocket for the piece of paper where I’d written the temperature in Celsius (I’d googled the conversion from Fahrenheit before leaving home), but it was gone. I searched my memory for the answer… trente huit point huit. He had to help me out with that one. Then he asked me something. I just shrugged my shoulders and looked confused. He tried English… he wanted to know if she has the sniffles. Ah. Un peu. He typed in his computer.. asked our name (which, thankfully, I can spell in French) and our phone number (which I struggled with not just because I had to say it in French but because I just have trouble remembering it). I thought that was the weirdest examination ever. Just some questions with answers in bad French and now he wants his money to send us on our way? No, I was wrong. He stood up and told Kaitlyn to follow him into the exam room. I hadn’t even noticed the big opening in the wall next to his desk. So in we went. I took off her shirt and she hopped up on the table. She was just calm as a little cucumber. He looked in her ears, looked in her throat, listened to her chest with his stethoscope, pounded on her little back. He told me it’s “la grippe**.” I gave my patented shrug/confusion look. He said “pas grave.” Well, I sorta guessed that all along. He told me she needed cough syrup, two fever medicines and something for her nose. He wrote out the prescriptions along with the form for insurance. All the while I sat trying to remember how to spell 24 for the check. (vingt-quatre. He finally realized I was struggling and he told me. In French. I am now ever so thankful for the lesson spent going over and over and over the alphabet!)

            I  took our list of medications to the pharmacy. The pharmacist asked me if I speak French… I said “un peu” so she explained each one to me in French. It was good practice and she was kind enough to speak slowly. In the midst of that, Kaitlyn hopped up and hollered “I have to pee pee!” There really is a horrible lack of public restrooms in France. I wasn’t sure what I would do with her. The pharmacist said “follow me” and took us behind the counter (In the US that’s probably some federal offense that would have the D.E.A. combing the place) and downstairs to their bathroom. It’s good to know that at least people understand that when a four year old makes that kind of announcement, time is of the essence. Kaitlyn liked it because we went past a display of children’s sunglasses that had apparently been put away until spring; she thought we were on a special shopping excursion on our way to the toilet. Once that was done, we went back upstairs (on our own, she didn’t wait for us to make sure we didn’t pocket any medicines or sunglasses) and I paid the 12 euros for the four medications.

            At home, Kaitlyn took her medicine no problem. She said the cough syrup tastes like waffles. The fever medicine is strawberry flavored. So that was like having dessert, I guess. She didn’t even fuss at the nasal spray. She kinda thought it was fun. She is so bizarre sometimes. I’m guessing it was the cough medicine that had her nodding off in her bowl of noodles. She was so tired she actually told me she wanted to go lie down in her bed. She’s been asleep for three hours now. Normally, I’d be freaking out that bedtime will be a nightmare if I don’t wake her up soon. But I’m figuring the night-time dose of cough syrup will take care of that!