Another one of my fears I have about living over here is medical care. Our base doesn't have a hospital. It has a clinic. At the clinic you can be seen for most basic things (a physical, medications, cold/flu), but anything more than that you are referred to a German doctor. I have given myself many pep-talks about how Germany is not a third-world country, it is an industrialized nation, so therefore the healthcare should be similar to the standards I'm used to. Despite my pep-talks, I have been afraid that while I'm over here I will have to utilize German health care. In a reoccurring theme, I got to face one of my fears and spent the weekend in a German hospital.
To spare details which no one really needs to know, I will generally say I was having "stomach problems." These stomach problems were severe enough to warrant seeking medical attention. That, and I was supremely freaked out. We arrived at the hospital in Bitburg, which is about 15 km from our house. Since many military personal and dependents have to get treatment off base, three of the local hospitals have Patient Liaison Officers, or PLOs. The PLO is there to help translate and to be your advocate to try and make your experience as pleasant as possible. As soon as we walked through the doors of the hospital we simply said "PLO" and literally within a minute the PLO was there. She was wonderful. She helped get us checked in, got me paperwork to fill out in English, and then stood right by my side to help translate as the doctor was starting her examination.
Here was where I first noticed a difference between US hospitals and German hospitals. In the US, if you were to go to the ER with the problem I had... they would examine you, maybe do a few tests, and then give you some meds and send you on your merry way. In Germany, I had barely finished filling out my paperwork and the doctor stated she was going to have to admit me. What?! Um.... okay... I guess? Is there really a way to protest that? I got admitted to the hospital on Saturday afternoon. They drew some blood and did a few other minor tests... but then mainly left me alone. And I truly mean alone. I was in a room by myself, and after they served me dinner (which was a piece of bread, cheese, and bologna with a pear) no one ever came back to check on me. In the US there is always a nurse or someone popping their head in, checking your blood pressure, checking your temperature, poking you with something... just generally bugging you. Here... nothing. What if I passed out? Or had a seizure? Or... something? No one would have known. I was a bit disturbed by this.
I knew the language barrier was going to be a challenge.. and it was. Most of the staff could speak some English... but trying to translate medical terms into English seemed to be a challenge. So there was a lot of fumbling/bumbling to try and tell me what they were going to do... followed by some crude pantomiming. I would say I understood what was going on about half of the time. The other half, I was just surprised by what happened next. They kept giving me an IV drip of something... I never quite got what it was... I think it was suppose to be something to help my stomach. What was surprising was the IV was a glass bottle. In the US you always get a plastic bag looking thing... but here it was a little glass bottle. I felt like I was in a hospital from the 1960s. Who uses glass? Then again, Germany recycles more than ANY place I've ever been... so maybe it has something to do with that? I found it interesting.
The biggest, and probably most disturbing, difference with a German hospital is the lack of infection control. Most people probably aren't even aware of "infection control" in American hospitals as it just happens so naturally. Maybe I'm a bit hyper-sensitive to it because it is something we also do in dentistry... that and I'm a germ-a-phob. But the idea of it is you wear gloves whenever you are going to touch either a bodily fluid or a mucus membrane, and you cover areas which may get "splattered" by bodily fluids. You also disinfect everything after you use it, unless it's disposable. Which is why people wear gloves, why things are covered in plastic, and why they throw things way or use a disinfecting wipe afterwards. It is not just for your protection, but for the protection of the healthcare provider and the person after after you. The nurses in the German hospital would wear gloves to draw blood/start and IV... and that's about it. A nurse was detaching an empty glass bottle of mystery medical fluid from my IV and put a new stopper in the end of my IV. A little bit of blood dripped out of the end of my IV. She used her bare hands to pick up a piece of gauze, wipe away the blood, then put the bloody gauze in her bare hand and walked out of the room. GROSS! Another nurse didn't securely attach the tubing for the mystery fluid to my IV... and some bloody fluid dripped out onto my sheets. She also used her bare hands to clean it up. I was super grossed out. In the US you also see nurses frequently washing their hands, or as soon as they enter a patient room they will use the disinfecting foam/gel/mist in the room. Never saw that happen in this hospital. If the nurses wash their hands, they're not doing it where I can see it. The language barrier made it a challenge to ask them why they weren't wearing gloves, or to ask them to put some on. I decided this was not the time for me to try and single-handedly change the hospital glove policy.
I spent the rest of Saturday hanging out in the hospital. Josh brought me my laptop and a stack of DVDs as well as some books. My friend Melissa brought me a stack of magazines and came by to keep me company for awhile. On Sunday I was told I had to wait until Monday when the Gastrointestinal doctor was in to see me. He would be the one to decide what was going on. However, they knew he'd want to do an endoscopy/colonoscopy, so I got to spend Sunday doing the prep for those procedures. For those of you who have either never had these procedures done, or you've never had a parents who has done one... let me fill you in on this. The doctor needs everything to be "cleaned out" so he can see inside of you. You get where I'm going with this? To clean you out they make you drink this nasty, terrible liquid. It is suppose to be lemon-lime flavored, but there is so much of the medication (whatever it is) dissolved in the water the water tastes almost salty and seems very thick. I used to tell my mom to just plug her nose and chug it. Let me tell you, that tactic doesn't work. The only thing you can do is just try to fight your gag reflex and choke down cupful after cupful of that nasty, terrible stuff. Ugh. After you drink that horrible stuff... well, it's suppose to "clean you out." Use your imagination. In addition to the cleansing, you are only allowed to have clear liquids. So I got to have a delicious lunch and dinner of beef broth, disgusting lemon jello (which tasted like dirty dish water so I chose starvation over the jello), and apple juice. I was a happy camper. Thrilled with life.
At this point, I was also beginning to question whether all of this was necessary. I spared you the details of what actually was going on with me physically. As I said, it was enough to freak me out. Before going to the hospital, I WebMD-ed my symptoms... and under every possible diagnosis it said "seek medical attention immediately." There is an "Ask-A-Nurse" hotline for the base, which I called and spoke to a nurse. She also advised me to go to the ER immediately. I think I made the right decision... however I guess I just wonder if I really needed a colonoscopy/endoscopy? I'm not a doctor... so I don't know, maybe that is a "standard" way of determining what was going on. However. Germany works under a system of socialized medicine. Therefore... the hospital isn't ever "making money" on anything. But. The hospital does charge out Tricare (military medical insurance) for the services it provides, and it gets paid for those. There is an... idea... or a rumor I should say... that floats around base that the German hospitals will do more things to you/for you as an American because they are getting paid by Tricare. Of the women I know who have had a baby over here, most of them have had a C-section. Which... just seems to be a high percentage. My cousin Megan had a C-section, and she told me she wasn't even really sure why she had to... the doctor just said she did. Maybe it's a coincidence... however the hospital will get more money from Tricare for a C-section than a regular birth. I'm glad the doctors wanted to get the root of what was causing my problems... but I can't help to wonder if the Tricare/money issue was a factor in their decision making process.
Monday I woke up and didn't get any breakfast... a sign I was truly going to have the procedures. A nurse came to get me, and wheeled me down to the treatment room. (Here is another fun difference between US and German hospitals. In the US unless you're very old/sick, they tend to wheel you places in a wheel chair. In Germany... they just wheel your bed everywhere.) I was in a room with lots of equipment and I realized what was about to happen. It was at this point that I got very upset thinking, "I'm in a foreign country, I don't speak the language, I don't know what's going on... I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!" Lucky for me, the two nurses and the gastrointestinal doctor who were there all spoke excellent English. The doctor explained what he was going to do, what he was looking for, and then the nurse gave me some sort of magical medicine in my IV. The next thing I knew I was awake and it was over. The doctor told me everything looked good... only the last two inches or so of my colon "had inflammation." He took biopsies of those areas to test, but he thinks they will come back negative. So ultimate diagnosis was that I had a bacterial infection... of unknown origin. The good part about all of this... I got to go home.
Josh picked me up after he got off work. We got home, and while he baked a pizza I took a loooong, luxurious shower (as I hadn't had one since Saturday morning). Then we enjoyed pizza (food, glorious food!) while watching the newest episode of Dexter online. I was exhausted and went to bed at 7:30. I slept all night with Josh on one side, both cats on the other. Oh it feels good to be home!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
So much to be thankful for
This year was the first time I have ever had Thanksgiving away from my family. Once, right out of college, I had Thanksgiving with a boyfriend's family (it was a disaster of epic proportions... too much family drama!) but I had dessert and spent more time with my brother that evening than I did with the boyfriend. So... I'm going to say that doesn't really count. This was the first time I have not been with any sort of family for Thanksgiving. I was kind of worried I would get homesick, but I also think Thanksgiving is going to be easier than Christmas.
I had some preconceived notions and stereotypes about military Thanksgivings. This year both validated and challenged these ideas I had.
We were invited to my friend (my only friend over here, minus my cousin) Melissa's house for Thanksgiving. She was hosting for her husband's entire shop, and invited us to come over as well. I was excited by this because we a). had plans, b). wouldn't be alone, and c). I wouldn't have to cook a turkey by myself. In the time from the initial invitation to Thanksgiving day, our invitation morphed from "please join us" to "please help us." Melissa had casually told people if they had a Thanksgiving favorite or something they loved having, they should bring it. She also had her husband put out a sheet where people could sign up to say what they were going to bring. Nobody signed up. No one had officially volunteered to bring anything. This is where the "help us" came from. I had always envisioned military holiday meals to be one giant pot-luck where everyone brought something, there was tons of food, everyone helped out. The lack of commitment from Melissa's guests was really challenging what I thought things were going to be like. This did more than challenge my ideas of how things should/would be... it made me mad. How rude! You are invited as a guest to basically get a free meal, a free wonderful holiday meal. My mom taught me when you are a guest at someone's house you always ask what you can bring. If you're told you don't need to bring anything... you bring something anyways. When you bring something, you don't just bring one tiny portion or one measly bottle of something... you bring enough to actually contribute. I just... I couldn't even fathom that no one was going to help out with dinner, no one was going to bring anything. It made me mad, and I wasn't even the hostess. I was mad for her. Josh assured me this wasn't "typical" behavior and it was just this particular group of people who were acting this way. I would hope so.
Melissa asked for help. We were happy to. Josh and I are similar in that we would do pretty much anything to help someone out. We also love food and love to eat. We decided to bring appetizers/snack foods, and desserts. Josh tends to get a bit excited when he has to cook something/prepare something for an occasion. Like for our wedding. Our wedding was a small affair with just our immediate families there. We decided to have some snack foods out for everyone. Every time I thought we were done and had enough food... Josh would start making another dip, or cutting up more cheese... But, I will say, at the end of the night all of the food was gone. Josh went to town working on appetizers for Thanksgiving with the same gusto as he did for our wedding. He made a meat a cheese tray, meet and cheese roll-ups, lumpia (a Korean egg roll), and deviled eggs. I made a relish tray (because that is a Thanksgiving tradition in my family), 7 layer dip, and Chex mix. I also made four pies - two apple, two pumpkin - for dessert. I also made my Grandma Shirley's cranberry sauce. That is a staple in our family's holiday dinners, and I think it is amazing. When we arrived at Melissa's house we had to make two trips to carry everything inside. Melissa is a wonderfully gracious hostess, and she kept thanking us profusely for all of the food and work. What can I say? Lehmans like to party.
Dinner wasn't suppose to be served until 2, but we arrived at 10 to help out. Here is where I should explain that Melissa is a southern bell. Our menu for the day included mac and cheese (she asked me if we had this at Thanksgiving, and when I told her no she thought we were crazy! Crazy Northern Yankees!), two types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (which I'd never had before - it was amazing), green bean casserole, baked beans (again, she couldn't believe we didn't have this at our Thanksgiving dinners), two turkeys, ham, cranberry sauce, and rolls. Holy food. I helped her to cook, which was a challenge as German ovens are at least 1/3 of the size of a normal American oven, and everything is in Celsius. However, everything turned out perfectly and was ready mostly on time.
There was probably around 20 people who showed up for dinner. This was the military turn-out I was expecting. And almost everyone showed up with some food or dessert to share. My faith was restored and people had redeemed themselves. The dinner itself was exactly what I thought a "military dinner" would be... lots of people, lots of food... everyone sharing stories of where they are from, what their family does for holidays. It was a great sense of togetherness. Though my family is a couple thousand miles away... I felt far from alone. I was happy to be with Josh and with Melissa. It was great to spend the holiday with my husband and a friend. I had a lot of fun and learned LOTS of great new southern cooking tricks. We were happy, warm, safe, and FULL of food. There is a lot to be thankful for.
A girl I went to high school with is living in Italy as her husband is stationed there with the Army. It's a small world. She keeps a blog as well. I was reading it this morning, and I have to share/steal something she posted, as it is something I think about all the time.
"This year I am so thankful to have the opportunity to live in Italy. I have heard a lot of people complaining about living here and it makes me sad. On the one hand, yes it is hard to be far from home and family and familiar things. But on the other hand I think it is all about your attitude. It can be oh so wonderful to experience all of these new things. Yes, it's scary sometimes. But it's wonderful too. The time will fly by and soon each of us military families will move back to the states, this is really a very short time we have here overall. So ENJOY it! " - from the blog The Life of an Army Wife Abroad by Jen Lloyd
I had some preconceived notions and stereotypes about military Thanksgivings. This year both validated and challenged these ideas I had.
We were invited to my friend (my only friend over here, minus my cousin) Melissa's house for Thanksgiving. She was hosting for her husband's entire shop, and invited us to come over as well. I was excited by this because we a). had plans, b). wouldn't be alone, and c). I wouldn't have to cook a turkey by myself. In the time from the initial invitation to Thanksgiving day, our invitation morphed from "please join us" to "please help us." Melissa had casually told people if they had a Thanksgiving favorite or something they loved having, they should bring it. She also had her husband put out a sheet where people could sign up to say what they were going to bring. Nobody signed up. No one had officially volunteered to bring anything. This is where the "help us" came from. I had always envisioned military holiday meals to be one giant pot-luck where everyone brought something, there was tons of food, everyone helped out. The lack of commitment from Melissa's guests was really challenging what I thought things were going to be like. This did more than challenge my ideas of how things should/would be... it made me mad. How rude! You are invited as a guest to basically get a free meal, a free wonderful holiday meal. My mom taught me when you are a guest at someone's house you always ask what you can bring. If you're told you don't need to bring anything... you bring something anyways. When you bring something, you don't just bring one tiny portion or one measly bottle of something... you bring enough to actually contribute. I just... I couldn't even fathom that no one was going to help out with dinner, no one was going to bring anything. It made me mad, and I wasn't even the hostess. I was mad for her. Josh assured me this wasn't "typical" behavior and it was just this particular group of people who were acting this way. I would hope so.
Melissa asked for help. We were happy to. Josh and I are similar in that we would do pretty much anything to help someone out. We also love food and love to eat. We decided to bring appetizers/snack foods, and desserts. Josh tends to get a bit excited when he has to cook something/prepare something for an occasion. Like for our wedding. Our wedding was a small affair with just our immediate families there. We decided to have some snack foods out for everyone. Every time I thought we were done and had enough food... Josh would start making another dip, or cutting up more cheese... But, I will say, at the end of the night all of the food was gone. Josh went to town working on appetizers for Thanksgiving with the same gusto as he did for our wedding. He made a meat a cheese tray, meet and cheese roll-ups, lumpia (a Korean egg roll), and deviled eggs. I made a relish tray (because that is a Thanksgiving tradition in my family), 7 layer dip, and Chex mix. I also made four pies - two apple, two pumpkin - for dessert. I also made my Grandma Shirley's cranberry sauce. That is a staple in our family's holiday dinners, and I think it is amazing. When we arrived at Melissa's house we had to make two trips to carry everything inside. Melissa is a wonderfully gracious hostess, and she kept thanking us profusely for all of the food and work. What can I say? Lehmans like to party.
Dinner wasn't suppose to be served until 2, but we arrived at 10 to help out. Here is where I should explain that Melissa is a southern bell. Our menu for the day included mac and cheese (she asked me if we had this at Thanksgiving, and when I told her no she thought we were crazy! Crazy Northern Yankees!), two types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (which I'd never had before - it was amazing), green bean casserole, baked beans (again, she couldn't believe we didn't have this at our Thanksgiving dinners), two turkeys, ham, cranberry sauce, and rolls. Holy food. I helped her to cook, which was a challenge as German ovens are at least 1/3 of the size of a normal American oven, and everything is in Celsius. However, everything turned out perfectly and was ready mostly on time.
There was probably around 20 people who showed up for dinner. This was the military turn-out I was expecting. And almost everyone showed up with some food or dessert to share. My faith was restored and people had redeemed themselves. The dinner itself was exactly what I thought a "military dinner" would be... lots of people, lots of food... everyone sharing stories of where they are from, what their family does for holidays. It was a great sense of togetherness. Though my family is a couple thousand miles away... I felt far from alone. I was happy to be with Josh and with Melissa. It was great to spend the holiday with my husband and a friend. I had a lot of fun and learned LOTS of great new southern cooking tricks. We were happy, warm, safe, and FULL of food. There is a lot to be thankful for.
A girl I went to high school with is living in Italy as her husband is stationed there with the Army. It's a small world. She keeps a blog as well. I was reading it this morning, and I have to share/steal something she posted, as it is something I think about all the time.
"This year I am so thankful to have the opportunity to live in Italy. I have heard a lot of people complaining about living here and it makes me sad. On the one hand, yes it is hard to be far from home and family and familiar things. But on the other hand I think it is all about your attitude. It can be oh so wonderful to experience all of these new things. Yes, it's scary sometimes. But it's wonderful too. The time will fly by and soon each of us military families will move back to the states, this is really a very short time we have here overall. So ENJOY it! " - from the blog The Life of an Army Wife Abroad by Jen Lloyd
Thursday, November 24, 2011
ACCEPTED
Here's the fun part of the journey I get to share.
Thank you to everyone who has shown your support or shared a kind word. Thank you most of all to my mom, who is my biggest support and #1 cheerleader. In her famous words, "Praise the Lord and pass the wine."
Thank you to everyone who has shown your support or shared a kind word. Thank you most of all to my mom, who is my biggest support and #1 cheerleader. In her famous words, "Praise the Lord and pass the wine."
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