My Eastern European medical experience

TUESDAY
One of the things they told us when we got here is that Hungarians don't smile much.  I guess it's true (from my experience so far) that compared to Americans, they don't but it was never really a big deal until I went to the clinic for my appointment this morning, and my doctor didn't smile at me once.  It was unnerving.  Actually, the whole experience was the most stressful doctor visit I've had in my life, and one that I NEVER want to repeat.

It was also pointless.  She seemed either disbelieving or accusatory at almost all times, and even ventured to ask if I was just feeling homesick or alone, asking me if I had friends and if I was depressed.  What this has to do with my dizziness, I'll never know. She was annoyed that I'd eaten breakfast and therefore couldn't take a blood test, but it's not like anybody told me that such testing would be needed.  She was also annoyed that I hadn't been keeping track of my temperature, but as I'm still adjusting to living in a foreign country, I don't have the slightest clue where I'd buy one.  She was also annoyed that my responses to questions about height and weight were not in the metric system, but it's not my fault that I grew up in a country that uses different measurements than the entire planet.  And then the reason why I came in was disregarded when she saw that I had high blood pressure.  First time in my life I've had high blood pressure, by the way.  I wonder why...

So I was sent of for a chest x-ray, EKG, and a visit with the eye doctor, all of which were time consuming and unnecessary because as the tests proved, nothing was wrong.

Most people didn't speak English, which made dealing with receptionists rather difficult.

I missed class for this.  And now I have a blood pressure monitor strapped to my body that suffocates my arm every 30 minutes.  I get to go back to the clinic tomorrow to have it removed and to get a blood test.  Not looking forward to missing both my journalism class and the Messenger meeting.

I miss my military doctor.

I must note, however, that not everyone I encountered made me want to cry (which I actually did a few times).  The first receptionist was rather nice and we communicated via impromptu sign language.  The eye doctor was polite, and so was the EKG person and the woman who strapped on my monitor.  If only I'd dealt with them first, because then I'd have been more at ease when it came time to handle the more intimidating situations.

WEDNESDAY
Much better experience.  I was much less stressed because I knew what to expect.  The blood pressure monitor confirmed that I do not have high blood pressure, but that I was merely stressed out last time.  They also did a blood test.

The interpersonal interactions seemed more positive this time.

FRIDAY
So...there's nothing wrong with me except that my iron is too low.  I'm anemic.  I wish I didn't have to go through all of that to find out, but the good thing is, it was all covered by my Hungarian insurance!