I was originally planning to write a post about my September course and the marvelously eccentric teacher administering it, but it seems that some local stinging fauna took a fancy to my legs and now I will have to write about that.
On Friday afternoon along with a bunch of international students I played some soccer. As is to be expected from someone who is out of shape (which I am at the moment), I woke up a bit sore the next morning, my legs covered with minuscule cuts, scrapes and insect bites. I went about the business of the day, took part in a tour of the center of town with other students from my language orientation course, napped on a grassy bank of the Rhine and then helped my roommates set up for a party that we were throwing.
The party was a blast, thanks to all who came. Unfortunately, midway through it my left leg started hurting right above the ankle in a way similar to how a pulled muscle would. At first we speculated that this was indeed the reason for the pain and that some soccer injury was to blame. This theory, however, had a couple of flaws. I could not come up with any recollection of a collision or movement that would have caused such a trauma. Usually one remembers such moments, even if the pain recedes temporarily afterwards during play. I, however, did not recall any particular pain in that muscle until Saturday evening. This in itself was also strange because, from what I know, athletic traumas manifest themselves normally within hours of occurring, usually when one is done with the sport and the adrenalin level drops. What kind of pulled muscle decides to start hurting more than 24 hours after it has been pulled?
Despite these doubts that night I put some ice on the leg before I went to bed, still thinking that perhaps this will help. In the morning on Sunday I saw that this didn't help and also noticed that there was something that looked like a big insect bite, red, itchy and slightly disgusting-looking. "This looks less and less like a pulled muscle and more like an infection/allergy caused by a bite" - I thought to myself and, after doing some superficial post-party cleaning followed by breakfast, headed over to the hospital around 1 pm.
To be honest, I was not expecting to have to have dealings with German doctors this early on in the year and was feeling a bit nervous trekking over to the Krankenhaus and trying to explain my problem to its personnel. Most likely because of this (and a lack of signs) it took me some time to find the actual emergency section. The waiting room was a mildly lit lobby at the corner of two converging corridors with one ceiling tile missing and some inconsequential decorations on its walls. I remember only noticing a child's drawing on one of the cabinets that showed a brown horse with a red cross on its side. I suspect this must have been the child's idea of an ancient ambulance (red cross included). I sat in this room for about 10 minutes before realizing that in fact I should come into the office and let someone know I needed help. My only excuse for this forgetfulness is that I was listening to some Andrew Bird and, not having to stand on my leg, was fairly content with my situation.
Fortunately for me, the lady at the reception desk was good at following my slow-paced somewhat awkward mixture of languages. She explained that the doctor was currently out on lunch break and that I would have to register for an appointment later in the day. I'm guessing this was because my problem did not require an immediate remedy of some sort. I signed up for a slot at 16:00, went back home and tried to understand my finances. After epicly failing at that for a couple of hours, I came back to the hospital, was taken to a room and told to wait for the doctor there.
Shortly a tall man in his late forties hurried in. He had nothing in his hands, no stethoscope or clipboard, and he was not wearing a white coat. He patiently listened to my staggering attempt at describing my problem in German, quickly decided that it would be more expedient to speak in English and for the remainder of our fairly short conversation stuck to that language. He passed his hand over the swollen areas a couple of times, observed the bite and pointed out that I had a very similar one on my other leg which for some reason was only itchy. Then he quickly said something about an oil bandage to the nurse, who proceeded to put some yellow liquid on the swollen leg and then a bandage over it. I was amazed to discover that the pain disappeared almost right away and I could walk with only a minor discomfort. As the nurse was bandaging my leg, the doctor scribbled some barely legible names of dermatologists as a prescription and handed me over the sheet with their names, saying I should contact one of them asap for further treatment. This being done, the doctor said he had work to do and left.
I chuckled to myself, because in the US it would unthinkable for a doctor to tell his patients he had to leave an appointment due to ongoing work. "I am your work!" - an american patient would claim, I think. I didn't claim so, however, and proceeded to leave the premises. The whole transaction took less than 20 minutes and my second trip to the hospital overall lasted exactly one hour. German efficiency for the win!
My next stop on this road of illness is the office of one of the dermatologists in town. At this point, I'm almost looking forward to it.
***Update***
This comes somewhat late as I will describe here events that happened this past Monday.
As per the advice of the doctor in the Emergency Room of the hospital, I called up one of the dermatologists on Monday before my classes started. I was planning to schedule an appointment, but the lady on the other end of the line said: "Come on over now, there is almost no line." I realized that my German was not good enough to argue for an appointment. I tried it in English, but the connection was too bad for the lady to understand anything, so I gave up and decided to ask my teacher if I could leave class for a couple of hours.
Because my teacher is a cool guy, he let me go, albeit after giving a lecture to all of us on healthcare in Germany that took almost an hour. My desire to learn new words and laugh at some cheesy jokes overpowered my reason and when I finally left the University on a bus headed for the center of town, I was sure that I would have to spend hours in line. Waiting was not that big of a problem, I then thought, because I happened to have a book (in German) with me that I had been trying to finish for an embarrassingly long time and a big line would mean an opportunity to further that goal. It also meant I could stay out of class for longer, but I think some people that know me will argue that I do not treat that as necessarily a good thing.
The dermatologist I was to see had his office in one of the very fancy old buildings on the north waterfront exactly where the lake becomes the Rhine (very reasonably called Seestraße). I found his house without a problem, climbed a flight or two of wide stone stairs, walked on a floor paved with simple mosaic patterns and entered a waiting room. I do not remember now what the exact color of the walls was (either salad green or orange), but it reflected the morning sunlight very well that day and the room was neither overpoweringly bright, nor gloomy.
To match the atmosphere in the room, the lady at the front desk was cheerful and understanding. She recognized me as someone who called earlier when I was only half-way done with the description of my problem, added me to the list of patients, told me where to go. As expected, the line was indeed considerable at that time: 6 or 7 people of all ages needed to have their skin looked at for one reason or another. I took out my book and consumed a chapter before being called into the doctor's office. While I waited for the doctor to come I observed that the room was not much different from doctor's offices in the US: bandages, pills and obscure utensils filled the cabinets on one wall, various informational and space-filling posters lined the other.
After about five minutes, a tall thin lady walked in briskly, shook my hand and introduced herself (I forgot the name, I'm afraid, I'm bad with names). I gave her a description of my problem, then, on her request, took off the bandage I was given the day before in the ER. She quickly glanced over the bite and the leg (which, by the way, had become bright yellow as a result of the ointment used by the emergency staff), passed her fingers over it just like the hospital doctor had done the day before. Her conclusion, however, was a bit different.
"It's not an allergy" - she said - "because if it was, you would be having reactions and itching all over your body, not just the area of the bite."
She then proceeded to say that in fact, the problem was due to a peculiarity of circulation in the legs. Blood there has a harder time (because of gravity) moving up into the body than coming down into the leg itself. A regular bite always causes some blood to accumulate around it. In a leg, however, this blood doesn't always get a chance to disperse and keeps accumulating further. This leads to swelling and that in turn - to pain and decreased muscle elasticity. The doctor said this was exactly what happened to me and that the restrictive bandage originally helped by containing the swelling.
She recommended that I keep the leg up while sitting for a couple of days and avoid standing for prolonged periods of time. When I asked about sports and dancing, she said: "You are young, play football, go to clubs and enjoy yourself! All will be fine."
I was very pleased to hear such a prescription and left the doctor's office in good spirits. As with the hospital visit the day before, the whole interaction took less than fifteen minutes. Overall, I have to say I'm impressed so far by the way doctors operate in Germany. Compared to the ones in the US, they are fast, efficient, and to the point. In the US, most of the doctor's I've been to tend to introduce small talk, jokes etc into the conversation and try to give the impression that they do not have any other appointments. A German doctor, on the other hand, broadcasts the message: "I am here to help as many people as possible. Tell me what's wrong, I will do my best to provide you a remedy. As soon as we are done, however, I must leave, I have 50 more patients waiting to be helped." This message, while it might seem a bit dehumanizing, is, I think, a very practical and useful one. I'd rather be treated this way. This is, of course, just an impression and one based on only two experiences.
P.S.
It is now Saturday as I write this and the leg is fine. Thank you all who inquired about it this week :)
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