One train can hide another
It all started at the end of October/beginning of November 2022 with a slight pain in my right calf. Nothing too bad in the first few days... Then it got worse, forcing me to limp so I decided to go and see a doctor. Here, translate to: “Marie, my life partner, nagged me enough to make me go and see a doctor”, she even got me the appointment.
I lived in Paris for 58 years and saw access to healthcare deteriorate in the capital, but I can now testify it is peanuts compared to the medical desert in certain parts of Ile-de-France. In Étampes, a town of 35,000 inhabitants, only one doctor was accepting new patients as a treating doctor. He became our treating doctor by force of circumstance: we're not complaining, but we had no choice. As he tries to do his job as best he can and also accepts people without appointments, the waiting time in the room of the same name can often reach 3 or 4 hours. So we complain because it's long, but if he didn't receive them, who would? And I can't even imagine what the inhabitants of even less populated regions are going through.
That day, he saw me quickly, examined my calf and diagnosed tendon inflammation or something else (I don't really remember anymore) and prescribed painkillers and a blood test with a D-dimersdosage, basically traces left by the body's fight against phlebitis (a clot in a vein). On that front, it's cool: there's a big lab in Étampes, quick appointment, quick results sent to the doctor and the patient via the internet. Great. The doctor calls me back because, of course, it's a party in there with the D-dimers: “You have phlebitis so I'm prescribing an ultrasound of the calf, to be done in 10/15 days to try to locate a clot. He gives me the telephone numbers of two clinics that do this type of examination, one in Étampes and the other 15 minutes away.
First call, no appointments possible for 3 months. I blurt out, “Are you kidding?” which doesn't go down at all on the other end of the line. I'm sent out in a bitter tone, and I'm hung up on. I call the second one, avoiding any “unkind” comments, with equal lack of success.
With the painkiller, things calm down, so I give up, unlike the phlebitis which, on Friday morning, caused my right foot to swell so much by blocking the blood flow that it almost prevents me from putting it down. I walk around half-bent over, Quasimodo-style. I spend the whole day like this, I even do a lot of things. On Saturday, I do the same but less actively because it's really starting to become unbearable, and on Sunday evening, I decide (here, translate to: “Marie has bugged me enough, etc.”) to call emergency services.
After being triumphantly carried down from my third floor in a porter's chair by a male and female mixed team of nurses, I find myself in the emergency room of the Étampes hospital.
Note for later: recently refurbished, it is in the middle of the woods about 2.5 km from the city center.
I am placed on a bed against the wall, alongside the others, and the waiting begins, with people breathing heavily, moaning, and losing their tempers, some claiming they need treatment because they are in pain, convinced that they are the worst off and that the others are just there for appearance's sake.
Everyone is entitled to their little questionnaire several times: on admission, then before the examination, then during. The same questions keep coming up: do you have health insurance? Any allergies? Have you ever had an operation? When? What for? Anyway, I'm not too badly off: after two hours, the doctor who takes care of me is quite efficient. Blood thinner, explanations, prescription, I point out to him that two crutches wouldn't be too much, as it's getting harder and harder for me to put my foot on the ground. He adds them, prescribes an ultrasound (the famous one) of the calf for the next day because at night, at the Etampes hospital, nobody does ultrasounds. And he releases me around midnight.
But at such a time, there are no buses or taxis. I ask at reception if they have any taxi numbers or an arrangement with a company so that patients can go home. Well, no. They give me a chauffeur-driven car number, I call: “Oh well no, all my vehicles are on a movie set, sorry…” Basically, you can't walk more than three meters without having to sit down for five minutes to recover, and you have 2.5 km to walk home, or you can wait until 8:45 the next morning for the first buses. Fortunately, an electrician who had been slightly injured on a construction site that day, tired of waiting, decided to go home and agreed to take me back. I climb my three flights of stairs, the last one on my knees because my foot hurts so much, but I know that tomorrow I can go to the pharmacy and that it will get better.
The crutches are a real relief, as are the drugs, and the next day I go back to hospital for the ultrasound of the calf, with my car this time. Blessed are automatic transmissions.
Calf ultrasound
It's a rather cool exam, the operator is not from the Etampes hospital, a nurse (or not) helps her to operate the machine that is on site. It's pretty zen overall. In the following days, I have to pick up the results at the hospital's administrative reception desk. Unfortunately, I arrive at 5:20 p.m., only to be told that after 5:00 p.m. it's a no-go. I give a ride home to a six-year-old little girl and her mother, who had also arrived too late. They were walking back to the city center, walking along the road, in the forest, without a sidewalk, with an almost non-existent side lane.
I'll finally get a hold of my exams results two days later.
Being sick is not my job
The next day, I go to my GP's office, ultrasound photos in hand, and wait for three quarters of an hour in a crowded waiting room, with nothing happening. Unwilling to waste my time, I leave. I leave messages via his (apparently subcontracted) medical office, which go unanswered. I feel better, so I forget about it. If he wants to be kept up to date on my health adventures, he'll only have to get in touch.
