Good evening my dears! I have a lovely little anecdote for you today. It begins with me feeling suddenly ill at school, calling my insurance here, and having them set me up with an appointment at a clinic. I left school a few hours early, thinking that all would be well...
Dun dun dun.
The problems began when I Google Mapped the clinic's location, and realized that I couldn't walk there. Alright, I thought, I'll take a bus. Wrong. I got onto a bus that went down Chavchavadze Street, which is the main street by the clinic...and I missed the stop by a good 15 minutes. Realizing that I would be late, I hailed a taxi and shelled out the 5 lari to get there.
Once I got there, I felt secure in that at least I would see the doctor and get some help. Again, not exactly on point- no one at the clinic spoke English, and my Russian does not extent to specific medical conditions. I told my doctor what was wrong (I'll spare you the details, but it ended up being a UTI), she repeated it back to me with lots of hand gestures, and we went downstairs to the lab...which is when the real fun began.
Apparently, just to be safe (and my insurance is amazing), she decided to give me every test she could- I received an ultrasound (my kidneys are doing splendidly), a GYN exam (at which time I took this picture...fairly alarming), and finally a few samples, for which I had to return the next day. Needless to say, I looked up more specific vocabulary for my ailments when I got home, something I should have done before I went.
The next day went much better, and I ended up getting a few prescriptions, zipping over to a nearby pharmacy, and everything was fine in a few days.
Lesson of the day: if you're not a native speaker, and you don't have a translator, bring a Russian or Georgian dictionary with you to the doctor's. Believe me, you don't know the word for _____ [whatever you're sick with].
THIS SITE IS INCREDIBLY HELPFUL FOR JUST THAT: https://www.healthinfotranslations.org/
Thanks for reading!
Mia
Dun dun dun.
The problems began when I Google Mapped the clinic's location, and realized that I couldn't walk there. Alright, I thought, I'll take a bus. Wrong. I got onto a bus that went down Chavchavadze Street, which is the main street by the clinic...and I missed the stop by a good 15 minutes. Realizing that I would be late, I hailed a taxi and shelled out the 5 lari to get there.
Once I got there, I felt secure in that at least I would see the doctor and get some help. Again, not exactly on point- no one at the clinic spoke English, and my Russian does not extent to specific medical conditions. I told my doctor what was wrong (I'll spare you the details, but it ended up being a UTI), she repeated it back to me with lots of hand gestures, and we went downstairs to the lab...which is when the real fun began.
The next day went much better, and I ended up getting a few prescriptions, zipping over to a nearby pharmacy, and everything was fine in a few days.
Lesson of the day: if you're not a native speaker, and you don't have a translator, bring a Russian or Georgian dictionary with you to the doctor's. Believe me, you don't know the word for _____ [whatever you're sick with].
THIS SITE IS INCREDIBLY HELPFUL FOR JUST THAT: https://www.healthinfotranslations.org/
Thanks for reading!
Mia
No comments:
Post a Comment