Being sick in Paris is the
worst. And somehow seems to happen about
once a month. When I arrived in late
March, I felt a cold coming on as soon as I stepped off the plane. I swallowed as many multivitamins as I could,
and slept as much as jetlag would allow.
One of my first orders of business, of course, was a trip to the
pharmacy. Once there, I immediately
blanked on all the French vocab I’d gained since high school, so instead of
telling the pharmacist “J’ai un rhume,” I grumbled out “Ah, j’ai.. un…” and
pointed at my throat. What a great
impression. Super articulate. The pharmacist interpreted, and brought out
three things for me. I rejected the
nasal spray and paid for some pills and a powder to be added to water. The drink turned out to be the worst thing
I’d ever tasted, and I decided I’d rather suffer the cold than one more sip of
that greenish brownish hell water. The
pills had extract from asparagus, and other such natural remedies. I just wanted some real drugs. I wanted to be pumped full of
headache-killing chemicals. But I didn’t
know how to communicate that. So I met
my host family with illness induced tears in my eyes. The second time I got sick, I realized how
much I rely on Walgreens. All I wanted
in the world was a place to browse cold medicine, crayons, and ice cream. Absence made my heart so much fonder of the
convenience of Walgreens. Much as I
enjoyed my time abroad, I’m not sorry to have made it out of Europe before
Sickness Round III began.
I too found it hard to replace my beloved American health remedies for the French version. As many will remember, our first night in Paris I tripped over myself, fell right on my knee in the middle of our whole group walking to dinner, and later found out I had a pretty sizeable wound on my knee. As if trying to find big bandaids made to bend wasn't hard enough, finding the right medication to cure my odd wound was even worse. The next day I found an antiseptic spray recommended by a pharmacist that seemed to make it even worse. So, I went to a pharmacy right by my host home the next day to ask for bacetracin, which I learned is not a product France sells. Trying to explain to the pharmacist why all the other remedies weren't working was humiliating, and between my broken French, my frustration with not knowing how to cure my knee, and the smirks and laughs of the pharmacists and customers trying to understand my problem I about broke down right then and there. Eventually he gave me advice, and I went on my way. But it was the most humiliating and frustrating thing, and even worse I passed him at least once a week walking to the metro on the way to school. Sometimes you just can't beat the variety and comfort of American health care remedies.
ReplyDeleteAbout three weeks into our program I was getting a sore throat and pretty bad cough. I never get sick, I can't even remember the last time I had a cough. My host mom must have heard my many cough attacks because one day she hands me a bottle of cough medicine. I was so grateful for the kindness of my host parents as well as for the fact I didn't have to go through the whole pharmacy struggle.
ReplyDeleteI did have to go to the pharmacy while we were in Marseille for my irritated eye. They were confused as first by what I said and then they saw my watery eye and got the point. Apparently you cannot buy a single bottle of redness relief eyedrops because the pharmacist handed me a box of eyedrops to cleanse my eye and another set of eyedrops to treat my eye. I would definitely agree that French remedies are very confusing.
As some of you know, during our trip to Barcelona, Jamie and I had a not so nice encounter with some sea urchins during our stand up paddle boarding excursion. When we returned to Paris, we were unsure of where to go to get these sea urchins out of us. After class on a Tuesday, we found a cabinet medical across from the beloved Bagels and Brownies. Jamie and I walked in and explained that we had stepped on sea urchins while in the Mediterranean. The lady, looking concerned, examined Jamie's leg while holding the tweezers but did not attempt to take any of them out. Instead she gave us some bandages and some ointment to put on them. She told us they would come out on their own which I found hard to believe since mine were on my feet. So, I applied this ointment on my foot and saw no results. I told my host parents about it and my host mom gave me an ointment she had herself which also did not work. After about three weeks, the spines from the urchins were gone.