Choose the Title of This Blog:

1. A "Cultural" Experience
2. A Misdiagnosis
3. Why I Will Never Go To A Slovak Doctor Again

About two weeks ago, I woke up on Monday morning and realized that I could not pee. I cannot tell you how unsettling it is to have your morning routine interrupted by an inability to do something you've never really had trouble doing before. Deciding that I could handle the situation, I drank about 3/4 of a liter of cranberry juice that I had leftover from my kidney stone escapade. About twenty minutes later, I still not only could not pee BUT I was extremely uncomfortable. I was certain that if I waited long enough this problem would resolve itself. The laws of urination should correspond to the laws of gravity: if what goes up must come down then what goes in must come out. I got dressed and gingerly walked to school. The first thing I did when I got there was stop by the bathroom. Nothing happened. I got ready for my day in the staff room and began to feel more and more uncomfortable. With visions of my bladder bursting, I decided that there was no way that I could teach.

I quickly found the school secretary. "Martina," I said in a pathetic voice, "I need to go to the doctor right now." Martina immediately got on the phone and two minutes later she announced that the doctor would see me now. Then, Martin and I went to the locker room ro find a student I could take with me to the doctor to translate. My heart sunk when I saw that there were only third years in the locker room. (I love the third years, but I was hoping for someone who had more advanced English.) Scanning the room, I spotted Dominika, one of my brightest thid years from last semester. "Dominika," I asked, "Would you mind coming with me to the doctor to translate for me?" When she said she would love to (she was going to miss her biology test), I told her to bring her dictionary.

The doctor's office was a block away from the school. Dominika and I walked upstairs and proceded to sit (miserably) for two hours. In Slovakia, waiting rooms are free-for-alls. The first person to wrestle his or her way to the examinationroom wins. Okay, that may be an exaggeration - actually, you just try to keep track of who is ahead or and behind you and take your turn accordingly. In theory this seems to be a good idea. In practice, it can get ugly. Dominika and I used our time in the waiting room to discuss and translate my symptoms so that she could explain them in Slovak to the doctor.

When we finally got to the examination room door, I was dismayed to discover that the doctor we had waited for for two hours was a pediatrician. In Slovak, the doctor explained to Dominika that she wasn't sure she could see me. After two hours of waiting, and knowing that if this doctor couldn't treat me I would have to go a couple of towns over to see one, I told Dominika to tell the doctor that I was very uncomfortable. We had waited two hours and this doctor was going to help me. Dominika nervously conveyed this message. When the doctor motioned for me to sit down on the examination table, I knew she had agreed to see me. Dominika began explaining my symptoms in Slovak: I passed a kidney stone the week before, I was feeling better after this, I only experienced mild burning during urination but that went away three days after the kidney stone, I woke up this morning and could not pee, I had consumed almost a liter of cranberry juice and still could not relieve myself, etc.

Please note: the doctor did not take my weight, temperature or blood pressure. She also never took a urine sample. Instead, she felt along my right arm. After a few minutes, she pursed her lips and began speaking in rapid Slovak to my student. When I heard Dominika say, "Co?!" (WHAT?!), I started to get nervous. "What's wrong?" I asked Dominika. "Moment," she responded and began flipping through her dictionary. When she located the correct word, Dominika announced, "The doctor says you have gonnorhea, and you should see a gynecologist." I sat there for a second staring stupidly at my student. Then, after a couple of terrifying images of a visit to a Slovak gynecologist WITH MY THIRD YEAR STUDENT TRANSLATING flashed through my mind, I beecame irrationally angry. Not only was I feeling miserable, but now I was convinced this doctor was not going to help. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I lied. "Dominika," I enunciated said through clenched teeth, "Tell the doctor that my mother is a doctor at a hospital in the United States. She says I have a urinary tract infection and that I need an antibiotic to treat it." I glowered the entire time Dominika translated, and I felt only marginally better when the pediatrician consented and unhappily wrote me a prescription.

Dominika and I walked to the pharmacy from the doctor's office, and on the way, I explained to her that I did NOT have gonnorhea, and then I taught her the English word "confidential."

About ten hours and two doses of antibiotics later, I was feeling much, much better. I decided to go online and see what magic pills the crazy doctor had prescribed. Imagine my surprise when I learned that medication I was given was primarily for the treatment of gonnorhea and infections of the genitals. At this point, Heidi and I decided to email her father (a doctor in Tanzania) to see if this medication would treat what we assumed was a UTI. Heidi's dad was appalled at the medication I had been taking. His exact words were, "Heavens, that is a heavy duty antibiotic. No bacteria alive in her system! Poor things." The good news was that my infection (along with everything else in my body) would be completely wiped out!

This experience did nothing to increase my confidence in the Slovak medical system. So, while we were in Austria for spring break, Heidi's host dad from when she lived in Austria during high school took me to his medical practice and checked me out. I received a clean bill of health. He even wrote and filed a prescription to dilate my ureters in case I ever have another kidney stone. The man is a saint!

It's been two weeks and I feel fine. I think I can even laugh about everything that happened. I have no plans to see a Slovak doctor again.