Monday, May 5, 2008

Un pompier ou un docteur

After spending a weekend having a shooting pain run from my elbow to my wrist on my right arm I decided I better just suck it up and head to the doctor and find out what is going on. No, it's not sympathy pain for Dancing with the Stars' Cristian de la Fuente it actually is a pulled tendon or pinched nerve...look the conversation with the doctor was half in French and half in English so give me a break here.
First off, if you'd like to know about my first experience with Dr. F you can check out my previous post- le medecine (be prepared to hear more personal information about painful urination than you'd ever care to read). This time, instead of making an appointment or un rendez-vous, I decided I'd go to his open morning hours which start at 7:30 a.m. and end at 12:30 p.m. I couldn't go first thing in the morning because Ally had her own appointment at le veterinaire for her yearly shots. I slowly made my way to the doctors around 9:30 a.m. - I say slowly because let me tell you driving was not a joy. You try shifting when your right forearm is suffering from pain shooting through it like a volt of electricity every time you move just so. 2 hours after sitting in the waiting room - salle d'attendre - I made tentative conversation with my fellow patients. They had been complaining to one another in rapid French I just couldn't really understand exactly what was happening. When they turned to me with a question I pulled out my standard, "Je suis desolee, je ne parle pas tres bien francais" "I'm sorry, I don't speak French very well." They were all very kind and slowed down their speech (somewhat) and used a little bit simpler language and I discovered that they had been waiting for 4 hours and that the doctor was not only a doctor, but also un pompier - a fireman! He had left his office for an hour that morning in his capacity as a fireman! Can you believe that? While he had a room full of patients waiting to see him he ran out of his office to attend to a fire! or something. he didn't look singed or anything even though he was still wearing his pompier shirt when I finally saw him at 12:30 p.m.!

If you haven't read about my first visit to Dr. F you should know that he has no secretary, no one to help him in his office. He runs the whole show, so it's not even like there was a secretary who could calm the patients down and explain where the doctor was and why. Nope, just a room full of grumpy sick people waiting for a doctor who had run out of his office! How crazy is that?

1 comment:

The Moss's said...

I would check out the references on Dear Old Doc, he could also be the Judge, the Sheriff (or whatever they call them over there)..just like a little Mayberry RFD. Hope your arm gets to feeling better.