Willkommen in Polska: Doctors, and Bloodwork, and Pills, Oh My!

About a month ago, I started getting horrible pains in my stomach and other discomforts in that area, so I decided to go to the doctor. This is not as simple as calling for an appointment, seeing as my Polish is still incredibly limited. Thus, I had to have my boss call around and find a doctor that could communicate in English, or German, or Spanish, or French. He managed to find a doctor who claimed he had a decent knowledge of English and an appointment was made.

I arrived at the doctor's office and told reception, "Jestem Jacquelynn Ayton. Mam 'termin'." They responded in fast Polish that I could barely decipher, so I added "Przepraszam, jestem z Ameryki", to which they used some hand motions for translation. I went through to the waiting room and expected to hear my name. 

As I sat waiting, I noticed people were just going into the doctor's office one after another. The time of my appointment had come and gone, and I realized that, apparently, people were in line and the appointment was superfluous. Unable to communicate in order to find out the order, my husband assured me that he knew who I was supposed to follow.

When I entered the doctor's room I greeted him with a polite "Dzien dobry" and then "Jestem z Ameryki", to which he responded, "Ah, USA, very good" through and incredibly thick accent. He motioned for me to sit down and then waited for me to start talking. I explained my problems using slow English and small words, and then he asked me a few things such as, "Drugs?", "Pregnancy?". I deduced his meanings of 'Are you on any medication?' and 'Are you pregnant?' and responded with a "No... I don't think so?" (isn't HE supposed to tell ME if I'm pregnant? But I'm not, so it's okay, and I digress) After the broken English questions, he asked me to stand up. 

He said "prendre votre chemise", which confused me, but my husband quickly translated the French and I raised my shirt. Then he said "tief atmen" and I was again startled by the change in language, but understood the German command to breath deeply. He then had me lay on the bed. "Where hurt?" and I directed him to the general location. At that moment, his cell phone rang. I thought he would ignore it. He didn't. I thought he would quickly say he was with a patient. He didn't. While I was laying on the bed with my shirt up and pants unzipped, the doctor had a good 5-10 minute conversation before informing the person on the other end he was with a patient. 

After some very painful poking and prodding, the doctor had me get dressed again and sit down. He suspected something called gastritis, prescribed me three different medications, and gave me referrals for blood work, urine analysis, and a gastroscopy.

The first thing to deal with was going to the Apteka to get my medication. I easily handed over the prescription and paid with little incident...until I looked in the bag. I had three different medications and no clue as to how much or how often I was supposed to take each one. We hurried back into the pharmacy, only to discover the person I had dealt with had disappeared, and so I had to try to communicate my situation to a different person. I started with "Przepraszam, jestem z Ameryki" and then attempted to continue with "Mam trzy i nie wiem...uh...nie wiem..." before I gave up and explained the problem auf deutsch. Luckily, one of Alexander's students works there and she came over to assist us.

After my first experience at the doctor's office, I was prepared for a line when I went to get my blood work, and I had learned how to ask about the order. We arrived just before opening time, but there was already a line for the blood work, so I asked "Kto jest ostatni?" and an old lady informed me she was. Shortly thereafter, an old man asked who was last and I said I was. It seemed to work fairly painlessly, until old lady 2 came and got it a little confused. The order was supposed to be old lady, me, old man, and then old lady 2. However, old lady 2 didn't think she needed to wait. So after waiting for nearly an hour, when it was time for old lady to go in, she let old lady 2 go in front of her, even though old man had argued with them about the line order. Regardless, I was able to get in for my blood work, which took no more than two minutes. I'm still fascinated as to why it took them an hour to get through 10 people.

I still have to wait a few weeks before I can have the gastroscopy. I've done a lot of research in an attempt to prepare myself for what to expect, but I'm not sure if research will completely prepare me for what Poland has to offer. I've experienced a doctor's office in the US, the UK, Spain, Indonesia and now Poland, and I must say, Poland is quite unique. But at least they get the job done.....I hope.

Parlez-Vous Anglais? A holiday in France

We left the U.K. a week ago today and arrived at the maison of my beau-parents, which is located in a tiny village called L'Isle Jourdain, between Poitiers and Limoges. Since my mari and beau-parents are basically fluent in French, I decided I should try to make an effort to really try to learn la langue français. 

I've attempted to learn French off and on since I was about 15 years old. The most seriously I took learning it was when I lived about 30 minutes from the French border town of Strasbourg, at which point I actually bought two textbooks for Elementary French 1 and 2. Generally though, I would simply ask my handful of French amis how to say a handful of basic sentences, just so I could say things like 'je ne comprends pas' (I don't understand), je parle français un petit peu (I speak a little bit of French), j'ai soif (I'm thirsty), or j'ai faim (I'm hungry).

When it comes to reading and writing French, I've been able to pick it up quite quickly due to my Spanish background. Not only is the grammar similar, there are also several cognates like facil and dificil. I've also been informed that nearly thirty percent of the English language comes from French, so cognates like intelligent and stupid come easily as well. However, the production skills of listening and speaking are a whole other can of vers.

When it comes to pronunciation, it seems there are so many exceptions to rules, that the only real rule is that there are exceptions. It's frustrating for me because I feel as if regardless of how well I can read or write in French, it will always be obvious that I'm not a native as soon as I open my mouth.

Of course, I guess I can't complain too much. Compared to English, French is a proverbial walk in the jardin as far as exceptions are concerned. I learned in my TEFL certification course how many exceptions there are in English and came to understand regardless of a rule, there will always be an exception.

In the end, I suppose I should get an 'A' for effort. At least I can actually kind of speak in some form of broken French, unlike my favorite interpreter.