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.

Willkommen in Polska: Lingua Franca

Our monthiversary in Poland was this past Sunday. We have been able to pick up some basic Polish vocabulary (I'm American/British, numbers 1-10, some food), but, unfortunately, Polish is a very complicated language to learn for native English speakers. On the plus side, our German background tends to give us a lingua franca, since we are less than 5 kilometers to the nearest German town. That being said, I have had a Polish friend get upset about me speaking German when my native language is English, and there have been several people around the town who pretend they can't speak German although they accidentally let a few German words slip when they have tried to communicate with me. So, it isn't always recommended to automatically ask, "Sprechen Sie deutsch".

Why?

Well, it takes some historical explanations. For those who don't know much about Polish history (myself included until about a month ago), here's an incredibly brief breakdown. The first establishment of a Polish state was around 966 AD and the Kingdom of Poland was created in 1025. Over a few hundred centuries, several empires rose and basically demolished what was once Poland, with each empire taking various bits of the metaphorical Polish pie. Then, World War I happened, and Poland claimed it's independence with the end of the war on November 11, 1918 (the Second Polish Republic). After that, things were cool for a few decades until the jerk called Hitler came along and invaded Poland. That was the start of WWII, "The Big One" (as my grandma used to say). After the Allies defeated the Axis, Poland was given over to Communist Russia (even though they didn't like it), and Fawlty Towers was given a punch line. Fast forward to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and Poland was once again independent and established the Third Polish Republic. If this was so fascinating that you want to know more, ask Wikipedia.

So, back to the original question of why we shouldn't jump to German in our daily conversations in Poland, and the answer is, well, Hitler invaded Poland. I am a strong opponent of stereotypes of any sort, but unfortunately for Germany, Hitler claimed to be acting on their behalf. I know some people would say, "That's ancient history. What's done is done. Let's move on." and the sentiment is nice enough. However, the wounds still seem to be quite fresh. Let's not forget that Auschwitz is located in Poland and there are still people alive who can remember the atrocities of the war.

With all that, I'm very happy to have a language with which I can communicate with the people where I'm living, but I also try to be as patient as possible when they lie about speaking or understanding German. It's a very touchy subject and I'd rather not be responsible for opening up old wounds.