Damn. Finally this winter weather got me. Headache. Dry throat, all time sneezing. The flu. The one and only, not the panic lie pestilent flu they tried to sell us. The normal and incapacitating one.
So here I go, calling work to inform them I won't make it and I'll go to a doctor. At least my Team Leader is human and understand that illness is normal. After this important formality the big and important one was to go. The doctor. This banal activity is still for me a possible issue as my German is not so perfect as it could be, so it's a kind of Russian roulette I am playing. If we, me and the medic, get lost in translation it could turn into a problem. As it is a normal, but annoying flu, I took the risk. By the past I always used so gentle - female - friends to help me out with it. The doctor by the time may had a different idea of myself as I took always a different one. Anyway those dear friends had to endure some half naked moments of mine (not so unpleasant I hope) and some dentist drilling (worse I imagine) as I could even explain myself. By the past I even used Latin terminology to make it clear, but this time I did it all the way in East German.
First contact with the reception was to find a "Termin" (appointment) as I wasn't coming like any regular customer with a previous premonition which would have me booking an appointment several weeks ago. Yes, my illness was unexpected. Nervously they checked their written agenda for a time for me while they were asking if she (the doctor) was my medic. Because if you don't belong to a medic, you won't have an appointment. Most of them have a numerus clausus on patients. So they'll send you out of their cabinet if you are not a regular customer. The Hippocratic Oath the usual medics make when their job seems to be overruled by the East German laws. Thankfully it wasn't my first time so, smiling I said she was my doctor (Christian 1 - East Germany 0). 10 euros after, I was allowed to wait for her in the waiting room. Here I got to pay the quarterly tax to see a doctor, valid for the quarter of the year (January - March, April - June, July - September, October - December). Not a big deal, when I remember that in Portugal I should pay 25 euros EACH time for it, or wait 3h in the hospital and still pay 6 euros (if my memory is correct). So for once, bravo East Germany.
My name and room two are in the same phrase, here I go!
After a brief contact the doctor asked me what I had (Well guess, Ich bin krank) and she checked my throat with one of those horrible wooden sticks in which I almost choke each time. Ok, no big deal..."Since when are you like that? Ok.... Do you need a paper for your work? Ok you'll have these and those and a "Krankenschein" for the rest of the week. And the antibiotics are for free..." Say what? Wie bitte? Yes, they are for FREE and generics (at least the state won't pay much more for the same stuff). Well... take that Portugal, our doctors always prescribed me expensive medicine and of course for some company who had paid the doctors holidays somewhere (as for Portuguese doctors we always are treated like collectors points to get them some goodies, but that's another story); Free and generic (here East Germany just tied the score 1 to 1).
Time to go! I went to the pharmacy and here it was, all set and back home for some recovery. I still had to send two papers to my beloved -not- Adecco company, and to the Social Security (the double of paper work... Ok, it seems useless but anyway, it's not such a drama). I am quite glad to have found a doctor on a Wednesday, as many are not available that day. Don't know why, but it's difficult to be ill on a Wednesday here. You may not found a doctor that day...
At the end I just rest at home, without any more problem than to kill the fever and rest, at the end me and East Germany tied up the Health Match. Good game, no faulty actions, just a bad timing to be ill.
