As the last post full of cute piggies suggested, I’ve been bedbound recently by the swine flu. Yeah, I know, everyone has had it now and there’s nothing exceptional to it – except that I have suffered through it in Holland, and that made things a lot more amusing.
After a week of feeling under the weather, my fever spiked on Friday night while I was riding the Brussels-Amsterdam intercity train, ready to spend the weekend with Wally. Usually he makes fun of my ice cold nose, but this time the heat waves I was radiating freaked him out a little. I was probably glowing in the dark too. I quickly hopped in bed, started speaking deliriously and tried to boil the beddings through my body heat and shivers.
Second flu day: felt strong enough to make it to the pharmacy – but just barely. I seriously consireded phoning a taxi instead of walking back. Pharmacy is actually a really generous term, this was more like a drugstore. Potato chips on sale and makeup were side by side with cough syrup, nose sprays and various sorts of pills. I picked a few drugs myself, since the checkers had other businesses to mind (and may or may not know what they’re selling, who knows.)
I ended up with a thyme based cough syrup. Ew.
Sunday night: I am evidently in no shape to take the train back home. Or to leave the appartment, for that matter.
Third flu day: I keep fevering, shivering, sweating, coughing, snotting, vomiting and other lovely stuff.
Fourth flu day: Since I’d had a fever above 39,5°C since Friday night, in spite of my 3 daily grams of paracetamol (the maximum allowed, for the maximal duration allowed) I started thinking it might be a smart idea to go see a doctor. I don’t particularly appreciate going to the doctor, especially in foreign countries. There are times when culture shocks are best avoided. But it seemed like the reasonable thing to do.
I called the hospital who told me I had no business calling or seeing them. You are not allowed there unless your family doctor told you to go.
Right. Let’s pretend I do have a family doctor in Delft. I called Wally’s doctor’s office, and the secretary asked me why I was calling. …Because I’m sick, silly goose! That not enough to see a doctor, here, the secretary picks and chooses. There’s no disturbing a doctor for any random thing! I had to describe my lovely symptoms to her (kudos to her for mastering English as well as medecine, by the way).
Her decision? “An otherwise healthy adult can have a fever for 5 days without it being worrysome. We don’t want to see you. Besides, a 40° temperature is a better sign than 38° – it means your body is reacting!”
Whaaaa?
On the fifth flu day my temperature was down to 38° (danger! danger!) which invalidated my reason to visit the doctor! So I stuck with automedication and small bowls of soup.
The icing on the cake came when I asked for a medical leave, since I’d been lying in bed for several days instead of showing up at work… “Oh no! This doesn’t exist here. In the Netherlands, your employer trusts you!”
Thank goodness my good French doctor trusts me too, and knows enough about my international shenanigans to write fake notes for me without blinking….
To keep on loving the French health care system, francophones or Babelfish users can read how my cousin met the British NHS and was appalled. Hellooooo culture shock!