You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

[Spongebob narrator]:

Ahh, the first post of 2019. 

I'm a week in to my new job at IBM and OH HOTDOG is it different in a lot of good ways. I haven't had an actual committed schedule since October and once again I've turned into that semi-responsible person who cooks their lunch the evening before. Sunday evening food prep has reminded me I can't cook at all. I mean I can. But it's a real grab bag of "frugal fusion" since I'm not getting paid until next month. I've been freelancing on the side to help pay for my morning muffins, but I'm happy to be in an environment that isn't up my ass as soon as I walk into work.

To be blunt, working for AT&T was a fucking nightmare, a just a huge fiery butthole of furious idiots who faxed us copies of gift cards as a presumed form of payment, ran over their dropped telephone line with a lawn mower, or fought with their sister-wife about if Big O Tires offered a cheaper tire rotation than Les Schwab. I originally got hired to become a manager, but I was moved onto a team which was led by a woman who turned out to be vehemently anti-American. I've encountered some misogyny in the workplace, but never before from a woman. Our small team consisted of some folks from India, Scotland, Bosnia, Australia, and Azerbaijan. It was mandatory to speak English at all times, even if it wasn't your native language and I was one of three native speakers on my team. My manager would often coo and blubber over the two Scottish guys, who were polite and soft-spoken on the phone.

I was the only American who was actually speaking with other Americans, and as a result, I was often told by customers south of the Mason-Dixon that they were so happy to talk to an American, or "someone they could understand," or "someone on shore." I had the easiest time of anyone doing tech support because I was helping people I understood and they understood me. There was even a number of agents we could transfer the customers to if they wanted to speak to someone between Canada and Mexico. One of the education modules I had to complete early on was about the NFL and college football because half the calls we received between September and January were about bowl games and schedules which hasn't exactly branched out into the European mainland. But this ease wasn't pleasing anyone. With the full use of my vocabulary, idioms, and nuances unknown to the ESL student, I could express empathy and connect with people more so than any other agent in that call center. I was getting paid more because of it and at some point, I believe I became a threat to those around me, especially my Egyptian manager.

It eventually got to the point where I would be at work for less than two minutes and was already being berated by this woman. She couldn't not say anything condescending or insulting to me. It was always something about having my bag under my desk (for easy access to food and insulin) or about not adhering to the strict schedule by 30 seconds. Then it was becoming obvious to the rest of my team this woman had somewhat of a vendetta against me. I was the best person on my team so why was I being singled out? She would pull me off the phone because she "didn't even want me on the phone right now." The last time I interacted with her she took me off the phone unannounced and yelled at me for an hour and 20 minutes. She came with such hits as

"How did you even get this job?", "I see no evidence that you've done this job before",

and the crowd favorite, "Do you even know what you're doing?"

Instead of offering me ways to improve the already satisfactory calls I was receiving, she insulted my intelligence. I don't even think I answered those questions. I just nodded and shrugged, the only war cry I had left that wasn't NSFW. 

What are we going to do, Liz? "

I'll tell you what I'd like to do...

I caved at that point and took a 45 minute break instead of my mandatory 15. I went outside to smoke and text my mom about the situation. I was incredibly close to walking out of the job I had fought so hard for. For the eight months before this, I had been tied up with immigration, translators, bureaucratic meetings, notaries, certified stamps, seals, and approvals trying to get this job. I was already sick and I'm guessing the stress of this made me sicker and when I came back to work from being ill, I was immediately fired on the day before my 10-day paid vacation started. My hair was falling out. I was incredibly depressed. Most of the information I had been told about the job for the last eight months had been a lie. I was given false information numerous times, information I had to confirm with four or five different sources before I landed on the right answer for questions I didn't think I'd be having to ask. This sudden firing also made me have to delay my trip to Seattle, pay British Airways more money, and once again rely on my parents for help. When I asked why I was getting fired, they answered with "legally, we don't have to tell you." Oh cool, doubling-down with the word "legally." I grabbed my shit from my desk and was escorted out of the building. On the way down to the lobby, I told the HR representative that AT&T was discovered to have donated money to white supremacist political campaigns in the United States, and it probably would be a good idea to have an actual American on staff to handle those complaints instead of some people who think the entirety of our country is Texas.

One week later, I interviewed at IBM with a group of four women, three of whom I'm working with directly. The bureaucratic immigration process took roughly eight weeks instead of the usual 20, and even with a small delay, I was able to start on time, get dependable information, and adapt to their much more professional environment. To put it this way, IBM is more of a democracy and less of a regime.

The more and more information I found out about the job, the more relaxed I became. For the last week I've been busy but I haven't been stressed out. I'm at work by 8am and home by 5pm. It's still light out upon my departure and my return. I'm not tethered to a phone so now if I want to get some coffee or some water or go to the bathroom, I don't have to send out a literal signal to all of the managers to let them know where I am for the next two minutes. It's quiet. No one talks to me. Most of the time everyone leaves me alone. At one point one of my managers told me she was worried I'd think the job was boring because I'd be "doing the same thing a lot." I would much rather do the same thing day in and day out with all of the possible repetitive motions than have someone standing over me while I'm trying to tell someone else the reason they can't watch TV right this minute is because there's a Category 4 hurricane barreling towards their quiet little beach community.

But most importantly, I'm happy that I'm learning. I'm doing data security, and without going into all of it, I'm making sure the correct people have the correct access to the correct things. Most of this last week has been spent reading PDFs, doing educational modules designed for the company, and quickly learning an atrocious amount of acronyms. There's no life or death situation and the work is fairly straightforward once understood and experienced. Yesterday was the first day I did any actual work and I got excited because I was finally contributing to the cause of keeping information safe! Or something. This job can take me places. I feel like I'm learning and by the end of the day, I feel accomplished. You can only restart someone's modem remotely so many times before you want to blow your brains out. What I'm doing now is current, freeing, and relevant. They're excited to have me on the team and I'm getting the impression I'm doing well for someone who is only five days into the job. I could tell it would be different solely by the on-boarding process they took me through prior to my first day. It was precise and clean with no room for error. Their HR speaks English incredibly well so if there were any complex questions or concerns, they were answered with clear confidence.

I have 23 days of vacation this year including some national holidays thrown in. I'm more giddy than I usually would be about this because my mom just retired. My happy beautiful mom had her birthday last week and retired the following day. She's worked so fucking hard (sorry, mom) for me, herself, her family, her friends, her former president, the amazing women in her life, and for the causes she believes in. Her last day at her job was my first day at IBM, like she tagged me in to take over so I can take care of her. What this means is more opportunities to travel in the future. I'm not chained to a specific timeframe and neither is my mom. She's looking forward to going to New Orleans with Max and there may be a summer trip to Mallorca taking shape. AT&T had such a hold on me where I had to bail out of so many things and let go of opportunities I wasn't sure I'd ever have again. I lost $450 on accommodation for Edinburgh Fringe and I could never make travel plans due to imprecise information. But now that it's the beginning of 2019, I can fuck around with the dates that are free to me and it'll make my family more flexible in the long run for our plans. I also like Facetiming my mom on a weekday where she's up making coffee and I'm home from work with a snuggly kitty who I whine at if he whines at me.

I'm also trying to be more careful with my money. 25-year-old Liz would have gotten money for Christmas and then immediately booked three tattoo appointments after buying a flat of Coors Light. 31-year-old Liz went to the Czech dentist to get fillings in her teeth replaced because the last dentist she saw before she left the country did a real shit job. Actually, it's because of this heinous contraption that my dental health was compromised:

This is a Herbst appliance, which I'm assuming was named after a German guy named Herbst. This car engine of an orthodontic apparatus adjusts your jaw to replace the need for elongated headgear use or potential surgery. It seemed like a good idea. It sounded like a good idea. But while my jaw slowly shifted into place over 18 months, my dental health was completely destroyed. No matter how diligent I was with a toothbrush, floss, toothpicks, those rubber pokey nibs on the end of toothbrushes, or mouthwash, there was no way to get that actual good clean feeling Orbit always talked about (no matter what). It was like having two pistons on both sides of my mouth, digging into my cheeks and chugging along as I spoke. A few days after getting it "installed," I went to a friend's house for dinner and ended up crying out of embarrassment because I couldn't chew anything . I wanted to be polite and finish what was in front of me but there was this shiny metal shame protruding from every breath, bite, or word.

When I got the thing out, it was a miracle.

I could yawn and not have it get jammed open like a stupid baby bird! I could chew gum! I could brush not the best but better!

After the entire ordeal, my teeth were straight and white just in time for high school. I was no longer an awkward gawky kid trying to be cool while also trying to find out who I really am. But shortly after this I discovered that having the equivalent of a pawnshop renting out my mouth weirdly created some permanent damage for my now structurally compromised teeth. I have severe cavities in the four points where the Herbst appliance connected to my teeth. Had I known this was going to cost me thousands of dollars in dental work in the future, I would have foregone the process of slightly moving my jaw. The dentist I saw prior to leaving Seattle did a shit job and I think I still owe them money but now they're in the same category where I placed my student loans: if I'm not home, I'm not paying for it.

I imagined the Czech dentist to be like a scene from the Saws or Hostel. Deep underground in a putrid stoney cavern, a man with blood for sweat and a metal ribcage would saw my jaw out of my head while I screamed and you wasted $14 seeing a shitty movie. But instead it was...calming. The practice I went to was owned and ran by two Czech twin sisters who get a fair amount of business from expats since they both speak very good English. Initially when I walked in, I thought I had the wrong place. Their reception area was shabby chic and for sure belonged on a Pinterest board somewhere in the Bible Belt. The floors were a gray wood and the furniture was clean, white, unassuming flatpack. They even had a chrome espresso machine on top of a bureau in case the mood struck while you were waiting to get your teeth cleaned?

The equipment, technology, and bad music was the same as every other dentist office I had been in. The procedure of getting numbed the fuck up and then drilled into was no longer a foreign or scary concept to me; as a tattooed diabetic person, I don't exactly fear needles. The cost is also roughly the same IF you had insurance in the United States. This wasn't covered under my state health insurance here, but it was still less expensive than what it would have cost at home with no coverage. A week later, I can feel my upper lip and I can drink hot and cold liquids without flinching my entire face. My next goal is to get my eyes checked because my prescription has drastically changed since I've been here. I started wearing my glasses more often but when I came into IBM on my first day as a platinum blonde with Gryffindor glasses, I needed to reintroduce myself to a few people.

It's about 9:30pm here. Tom Brady is a good football player but holy shit is that guy super boring. What a lame Super Bowl. I can't stay awake for a lot of the primetime television events due to the time change, so I skipped out on the Super Bowl and the State of the Soviet Union address or whatever people are calling Trump's rambling babbles now. The days (err, nights) of staying up until the wee hours of the morning are over. But I'm going to bed early and I'm not stressed so I'll take it. I'll make my weirdo food concoctions of something spicy with protein, vegetables, and a sauce made up of three other sauces. I'll drink my tea with too much honey in it, and I'll snuggle with my cat whose newly discovered affinity for wet food has made him so much more annoying but in the best way.

Czech and Date

I first used Tinder in 2015. I had just moved back to Seattle from Minneapolis and I wasn't really sure of my relationship status at the time, so I hopped on the app with a notoriously simple UI. After a few cautious swipes I got a match! My first match! What should we name our kids? What will he think of a color scheme containing seafoam and taupe?

After some further investigation, I discovered my future husband and I had around 60 friends in common from Facebook. Of course, he was a comedian.

Tinder is such a mystery to me because I've seen people use it like a sperm donor donation guide but also in a hot-or-not rating system way just to innocently pass the time. None of the matches I ever made came to fruition. The furthest I got was moving from the app to text messaging with our real phone numbers. No movies, no dates, no walks along Alki. A daily "hey how's it going" turned into a weekly "what are you up to this weekend?" I wasn't crazy determined to meet anyone every time I've used Tinder, and I spent most of my time swiping left to find people I know and giggle over how they chose to represent themselves through six Instagram pictures and their recent Spotify artists. 

Honestly, meeting someone from Tinder sounded like a lot of work.

Are they going to like me? I'm leaving the country soon so I could ruin his life. I'll ruin his life. I'm running out of foundation. Is this guy worth scraping the bottom of the tube with a q-tip just to give off the illusion that my skin is decent?

I'd rather stay home and watch Brendan Fraser movies with my cat (this ended up happening a lot). 

For the first three months I was in the Czech Republic, the only person I thought of was myself. Initially this idea is selfish, but when transitioning to a post-communist country with a lot of people who have been through some shit, I had to make sure I was doing okay before I even considered romantically invited someone into my life who may have very different societal ideologies than myself. I redownloaded the app and edited my profile with more recent pictures and a few notes about my eating habits (cheeseburgers), my drinking habits (there isn't one), and my love for sitcoms (not that there's anything wrong with that). But even after ten minutes, I could tell my main issue would be the language barrier. 

Most people here who are under the age of 30 speak English to some degree. It is now taught in primary schools as opposed to German or Russian. The more profiles I went through, the more I realized that I'm either going to have to find someone who speaks English or I'm going to have to learn Czech very quickly. I'm very sparing with right swipes, so any dude who I became interested in superficially had to meet a certain set of criteria: not all of their pictures should be of them drinking, they need at least one photo someone else took of them, no gym selfies, and they had to indicate they spoke at least some English. After a few minutes on the app, I saw a popular pattern emerging among Czech men:

(I accidentally swiped left on a couple of these goobers so I'll update if anything happens.)

If you guessed "men on vacation wearing sunglasses," congratulations! Most of the profiles I saw had an absurd amount of men traveling and being active. If you swapped all of these pictures out with American girls who recently studied abroad for all of two months, there would be zero difference. I shied away from making contact because I think I was intimidated. I know myself well. I don't surf. I don't mountain climb. I don't go to places where I can't at least buy a snack. I like being comfortable and where there's no threat of large crowds or riptide or bees. There is a residual fear of not being able to connect with any of these people because I like movies and writing and typically things that involve being indoors for an extended period of time. What am I going to talk about? How I found a good Russian cam rip of Isle of Dogs or what subreddit deserves more attention?

I only had one successful match where the conversation lead to WhatsApp and eventually a date at a teahouse. He looked like a young James Spader and majored in astrophysics. In his spare time, he's working on getting his pilot license and spending time with his family. English wasn't his first language and my first instinct was to correct his actually pretty decent grammar, but it was so harmless and cute I almost couldn't take it seriously. And that's why I think I'm largely unsuccessful with dating apps: I can't take them seriously. 

Every profile becomes a joke to me. By the end of my perusing I've given half the guys ambiguous Slavic accents and butchered their English while they talk about the differences between good and bad dinner rolls. Tinder has now replaced Reddit as the "hmm what else can I do" entertainment portion of my evenings. It's incredibly mindless and I only login after I'm convinced I've read the entirety of the internet. I forget I have Tinder. I open it maybe once a month, and each time I open it I have to reacquaint myself with the conversations I left dangling or the five guys named Martin and the three guys named Ondrej or the couple of guys named Pavel. I'm also convinced there's only seven Czech names for men and that's why I can't keep any of them straight or differentiate them from one another.

I wonder if Tinder is worth my time because it slowly came to feel like a chore. I became more content with continuing to spend time with myself than muster the effort to meet someone who may not understand me, both emotionally and linguistically. James Spader understood my jokes and we texted a few times after our date, but we haven't talked in maybe two weeks. Things fizzled out and I think neither of us saw the point of carrying it out any further. I also have my own suspicion he lost interested when he found out I don't drink or go clubbing. The only thing in common was our age. It was tough to build a cultural connection in such a short time, but maybe it was for the best. I always feel safer when I'm alone. The act of procreation is really popular here, and I don't mean the euphemism for sex, I mean actually procreating to make children, so the older generation urges the younger to make offspring. I can't even start my job, let alone a family. What I'm getting at is that I don't know how I'll measure up to Czech expectations of how life is supposed to proceed. I'm on a very different unpaved road and I'm not trying to rush into anything. For now, Tinder is only a source of entertainment, a digital carousel of traveling millenials and Adidas tracksuits. I'm not desperate. I think the only person I need right now is me.

"YEAH, YOU'D THINK."

I don't even know where to start because a lot has happened but also nothing has happened at all. This is my first entry for all of June because, like I said, nothing has really happened worth noting.

Czech bureaucracy has worn me down to the point of tears. The immigration and employment processes seemed fairly streamlined and straightforward when viewed on a website. But when you're having to go from one brutalist building to another to ensure the concrete ship is being ran tightly while being forced to hand over the wheel to someone else, it can become extremely discouraging. 

To be more specific, I'm having to do a lot of the work myself. You might be thinking "oh poor you, Liz. You LIVE in Europe, how can that be so complicated and exhausting?" Because I can't trust anything anyone tells me. Usually when you speak with someone directly from the government, you have some some faith that you're being told an official, correct answer. Between the information I get from the Ministry of Interior, my new job, their respective websites, and the faceless person who may or may not communicate effectively with me via email, something is always left out, I receive four different answers to the same question, or I get information too late that would have been much helpful at an earlier point. As a result, this poorly oiled stroj has made any attempt at planning ahead, organizing a schedule, or getting any kind of clear answer to do so next to impossible. 

Here's a "quick" timeline of 2018 so far:

January 27:

Got hired at new job pretty much immediately. Woohoo! This means applying for an employee card, a two year "visa" that allows me to legally work for a business in the Czech Republic as opposed to using my trade license and a long-stay visa through a term of one year.

January 27 through March 27:

Gather certified documents, translations, and degrees to apply for employee card. I find out my start date at work is April 23.

March 23:

I give notice at my teaching job as I must notify my employer more than 60 days out if I have the intention of leaving my position.

April 9:

Apply for employee card at Ministry of Interior. I'm told this process should take six weeks. I pay an administration fee of 1500 crowns but I have to use government issued stamps as, I quote, "bribes are still a problem here."

April 23:

I'm pushed back at my job until May 14 as my employee card is still processing. I get a letter from the Ministry of Interior saying I need to come in with a certified Czech translator for an interview on May 10.

May 10:

My interview with the Ministry of Interior is centered around me switching from my trade license to an employee card. A ton of questions ensue about my assets in the Czech Republic, how I spend my time freelancing, why I will no longer be teaching at an accredited institution, and why I applied for the job. 90 minutes later, they tell me I could be approved as soon as Monday or by the end of the following week.

May 11:

My last day at my teaching job. I quit at this time because I was under the impression I would be working that Monday.

May 14:

I'm not approved and my start date at my job is pushed back to June 11. 

May 17:

Receive a phone call from the Ministry of Interior my application for an employee card was approved. I'm told I'll receive an official copy in the mail within ten days so I can formally confirm with my employer. I am given a date, June 27, to come into the Ministry of Interior for biometric data to be included on my employee card, 13 days after my supposed start date. The person who calls me tells me I can start work even if I don't have the card in hand.

May 22:

Because my employer wants to conduct a medical check, as in an exam making sure I can actually do the job I was hired to do, I meet with a doctor who doesn't know me. He determines that because I have Type 1 diabetes, I might be a risky hire. I'm given a test tube to pee into as I have to provide my own sample (or anyone's) and meet with another doctor assigned to my employer on May 24. 

May 24:

The second doctor doesn't ask for my urine sample. I record this conversation as I have now learned I can't trust what anyone tells me. She agrees that I might be a risky hire because I have Type 1 as well as depression. My case is sent over to a board of directors in Prague to review and my endocrinologist is called to confirm my diabetes is being successfully managed and I have zero complications as a result. She doesn't ask for my urine test and I then realize I basically could have lied about the whole thing because no one was going to bother to check or follow up with me. She then stammers with me for ten minutes while I ask her what is it exactly about my disease that prevents me from working my job. I leave with no answer.

June 1:

My medical check is approved but I haven't received any information in the mail that I can show my employer I can start work on June 11. 

June 11:

I don't start my job. Turns out I can't work unless I have the actual card printed and in my hand.

June 12:

My employer pushes me back until July 23. My employer tells me there might be a possibility I can start on July 16, but no one confirms this. 

June 27:

I go to the Ministry of Interior to get my picture taken and get fingerprinted for my employee card. I am told I can pick up the card on Tuesday, July 17. I notify my employer my card will be ready to pick up on said date.

June 28:

My employer tells me I can start on July 16, but they can't tell me if I can work without the physical card in hand or if I am able to take time in the middle of the following day to pick up the card. I sit in bed and write this post. As of yesterday, this has now taken six months.

The Czech Republic is a weird place. In some areas you'd think it would be incredibly advanced but in other areas, it doesn't add up. The main example I use is with our debit cards. Across CZ we can use a "contactless card," meaning I no longer have to swipe it and I can just tap the card on a receiver and my purchase goes through. Not a lot of banks have instituted this technology in the United States so it's kind of a one up. 

However, the main branch of my bank is in central Brno, and if I want to take money out or deposit money, I have to pick a number like it's the fucking DMV and wait until I'm called to then tell a real person how much money I want to deposit or withdraw. So the technology is great...but the automated system overall is not updated or consistent.

The major thing I have learned in the past nine months since I've been here is that expecting all of the bureaucracy to go seamlessly is ridiculous. The first tip I should have noticed this at is that for me to apply for a visa in the Czech Republic, I had to go to Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna, or Bratislava. I had to leave the country to apply to stay in the country which I came from. I thought it would be...easy.

Not only has the process been long, annoying, and every level of frustrating, it's been emotionally taxing. Because of the delays in my job, I had to back out of Edinburgh Fringe as I thought I'd be able to take time off in August if I had started on time. I lost my deposit I put towards a bed in a shared flat and my flight didn't get refunded. Overall I lost about $500 on this, money I could have put towards a deposit on a new flat or used for airfare to fly home and visit. There were times where I thought I could have gone home for a week, but because I couldn't trust any of the information being told to me, I couldn't risk being out of the country during a time where something might change...again. This process has affected my stand up, my family time, my creative drive, and my determination to be a real person.

My main "character defect" is patience, as AA told me. I don't have it. I don't know what to do with it when I do have it. I absolutely hate not having the answers to questions I have. My dad told me a story a few weeks ago where he was watching me when I was about age 2. He took these magnetic alphabet letters we had off the fridge and put them in front of me to spell different basic words. My dad would put the word out in front of me and say "cat!" while he'd point to Jake or Elwood, named after the Blues Brothers. I picked it up fairly quickly, but once the letters were scrambled, I didn't do well. He put the word "cat" with the letters out of order in front of me. I was getting agitated because I knew all the letters were there but I didn't know what to do to make it say "cat." I became inconsolable, crying and saddened, a two-year-old only wanting the answer that couldn't be given to me.

I've been too depressed and angry to write this post and part of me didn't want to let everyone know how I was doing. A lot of the complications are hard to explain to someone who hasn't gone through it themselves. For six months I've been trying to create some semblance of a schedule or routine, but I haven't had that. I sleep from 3am until 3pm. I've watched a lot of sitcoms and my YouTube history is full of conspiracy-related time holes. I try to do one thing a day, whether that's a load of laundry or checking. I cried myself to sleep last night because I really don't want that much: I just want my tiny apartment, my cat, and my job. 

I've been looking at other flats because the one I'm in now is excessive and I'm paying for a lot of space I don't use. I went to look at a place in a panelak, a panel style building constructed in the former Czechoslovakia, and I fell in love with it. On the top floor with no one living above me, the windows looked out over the hillsides and industry of the city. I had a deck with windows that could be pulled aside in the summer for fresh air. The bathroom was brightly lit and there was sample storage space for the items I don't have. The kitchen was pristine but not sterile. With two major tram lines and five major bus routes at the bottom of the building, I'd have easy access to the job I have yet to work and the rest of the city, but being up thirteen stories, you couldn't hear anything and it was reassuringly quiet.

The weather has been cold and 50ish. It rained all night so when my hometown weather is upon me, I use it as an excuse to not go out. "Well at least I'm not spending any money!" I think to myself as I restart Brooklyn 99 and eat a tortilla for dinner. I cried myself to sleep last night because I honestly thought it wouldn't be this hard. I've put in the effort, made appointments, showed up on time, filled out the right forms, certified and translated all my documents correctly, followed up with phone calls and emails, and I still feel like I failed. Why is it that the Czech system is so backwards but I'm the one who feels like she failed? I don't want to sit here and be like "Yeah man the system, man...it's just the system out to get us" but really I don't think people realize how much easier these processes could be. I'm definitely spoiled coming from the US, but you'd think some changes would be implemented given that so many immigrants and foreigners are going through these exact same steps just to get a well paying job in a different country on a daily basis. At what point is it not worth it anymore?

And the worst part of all of this: the United States is so fucked up right now, I feel like I can't go home, even if I wanted to. Do I try to do best with the cards given to me in CZ or do I risk not having access to certain human facets at home? Do I have a home right now? I feel like I can't go home. 

A lot of this is me simply rambling but I'm realizing it's a pretty accurate example of the state I'm currently in: I'm lost with no organized timeline and I can't trust anyone. 

Czech Healthcare Adventure! Part III

Over the weekend, I was turned away from a Czech emergency room. 

Yep. Turned away. 

For the last two weeks my blood sugar has been wildly unstable. I talked with my doctor numerous times to figure out what steps I needed to take to decipher what sorts of Enigma-like codes my body was signaling to me. Narrowing out possibilities is pretty much all I can do. It's a trial and error process since I can't ask my body what's wrong with it. If something is amiss, I'll usually see it in my blood sugar levels before anything else. 

I adjusted both of my insulin levels with no success. My next method of detective work involved going off certain medications. I thought the Czech version of American drugs were the culprit, but even that seemed strange since all of the essential ingredients are the same. Because I was going low at seemingly random times and more frequently, I was having to eat total garbage. When I'd go low again after correcting myself with Skittles or juice, the last thing I wanted to do was consume anything else, and having to do this often was causing havoc on my digestive system. I cancelled classes because my stomach was in knots after eating so much while trying to prevent myself from going low to the point of seizure or unconsciousness. Having a normal meal at scheduled times became rare. And then on Saturday night it was clear something was incredibly wrong. 

My body got to the point where it only had two modes of operation: not shitting at all or shitting way too much. I figured my digestive system was deteriorating from all the sugar I was having to eat to stay level. My teeth hurt from the increased amounts of acidity and I need to brush very gingerly. I became nauseous, sad, frustrated, and tired. I was exhausted from running out of my classes to drink juice and run back in, from having to carry around extra weight of food and drink when businesses were closed, and from the amount of phone calls I was having to make to try and get my questions answered. I was getting low multiple times a day and nothing seemed to work.

My blood sugar is usually supposed to be between 90 and 120, but these changing levels were causing me to go as low as 40. I'd be sweaty, shaky, unable to form a complete sentence, and extremely panicky. My students noticed, the other teachers I work with noticed, and having to explain an autoimmune disease in choice vocabulary to a non-native speaker proved to be very difficult. I was worn out from the questions and the onslaught of misinformation I needed to discredit. 

Then my kidneys started hurting. My joints in my hips and knees were inflamed with unidentifiable tension and I couldn't stand up straight without having to keel over and rest my weight on my knees. I wasn't able to lie down without bending into a fetal position and my stomach felt like it was infinitely expanding from having to constantly consume food. I told my mom about my symptoms and she suggested I go to the ER. Despite being in the Czech Republic for six months, I wasn't sure how to go about that. I knew where the hospitals and urgent care centers were, but what I didn't know was that some hospitals only specialize in certain things. It sounds naive and probably American to think that I should be able to go into any ER and be seen immediately, but I was totally wrong. 

Kisha, my closest friend in CZ, lives one bus stop away from me, and when I decided to go to the hospital, she walked up the hill at 2am and met me with my blood sugar at 60. I tried to eat but my blood sugar kept going down. I was frantic and crying. What should I bring with me? How long will I be gone? What if something is seriously wrong with me? What was the cause of all this? My dead pancreas couldn't spring back to life after being deceased for eight years, so why the random instability? 

I grabbed some snacks, my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, a roll of toilet paper, and my phone charger. We got a cab to the urgent care hospital that was just down the street from the school where we work. I was wearing my sweatpants and slippers I bought for rehab and tried to be as comfortable as I could, except my body was clearly fighting my every move. After arriving at urgent care, we spoke broken Czech to a few different staff members to try to locate the actual emergency room. In the US, an ambulance bay in a hospital is pretty obvious when you see it, but in the middle of the night with next to zero neon signage, it took some lengthy navigating of narrow cement hallways, outdated elevators, and stenciled warnings from the communist era. 

When we finally reached the door to the actual ER, I was resting with my hands on my knees and my lips were turning blue. I was sweating and shaking and was in serious need of help when a nurse appeared at the door. She crossed her arms and stared at Kisha and I as if she were surprised to see us. We explained in Czech that I was diabetic and my blood sugar was low, but through miscommunication she kept telling us she couldn’t give me any insulin. (I’ve had a few people ask me if they should give someone insulin when their blood sugar is low. DO NOT DO THIS. It will send them into shock even faster and they’ll most likely have a seizure. Insulin is what keeps blood sugar low, not raise it). We kept telling her I didn’t need any insulin when a doctor came out to see us. He rolled his eyes and spoke with her, and then she told us that they don’t help diabetic people here because this wasn't that kind of a hospital. This particular hospital was marked as urgent care but only for trauma related circumstances. While Kisha and I were trying to decide what to do, another couple came in and were also turned away. At this point I was heavily shaking and not realizing it at the time. I needed serious medical assistance and a hospital turned me away? What do we do now?

We went back outside to the entrance of the hospital and sat on the curb trying to get a cab late on a Saturday night. Our local cab apps for Brno weren’t working and “hailing” a passing cab here leaves you ignored and scoffed at. I finally bit the bullet and dialed 112, our emergency number. Luckily to work for 112, speaking English is a requirement, so I spoke with a representative and had the following conversation.

Me: Mluvis anglicky?

Rep: Yes.

Me: I’m currently at the hospital on Ponavka and I’m in a lot of pain and my blood sugar won’t go up. I’m diabetic and I need serious help.

Rep: You need to go to the hospital.

Me: …right. I went into the hospital at Ponavka and they turned me away.

Rep: And you need help?

Me: YES.

Rep: You need to tell the nurse you need help.

Me: I already did that. And they told me they couldn’t help me. A hospital. Told me they couldn’t help me. So now I’m trying to figure out what to do. That’s why I called this number.

Rep: Can you go back inside?

Me: …hang on.

Kisha and I walked all the way back up to the emergency room with a janky elevator ride and damp hallways. The nurse came back out to see us and once again looked surprised to see us one more time as if she had done something for us earlier. I said to her, “jedna jedna dva” and pointed at my phone so she knew who was on the line. The representative with 112 spoke with the nurse in Czech for a few minutes. She handed the phone back to me and the rep and I continued our conversation.

Rep: You need to go to another hospital.

Me: Even though I’m literally in a hospital? Right now?

Rep: Yes, you’re in a trauma hospital. They only treat serious injuries like broken bones.

Me: So what if that person with a broken bone is diabetic and they’re having some serious issues? Do they get sent away, too?

Rep: You can’t be treated there.

Me: Clearly.

Rep: You can go to the military hospital two kilometers away. They are open during the night.

I hang up the phone and Kisha looks at me completely dumbfounded. Urgent care turned out to not be as urgent as we needed it to be, and we were fairly astonished that hospitals can be picky with who they treat in a time of emergency. This surprise might be our “we grew up in the United States and we can get help anywhere” inhibition kicking in, but it seems ridiculous that in a supposedly developed country like the Czech Republic you can’t get the proper medical care when you need it. Sure, they’ll hand out health insurance like Facebook event invites, but they’re going to be super selective with who and what they treat.

Kisha and I dug into our phones and located the military hospital across the river. She told me my lips were blue and my face was sunken in and I started to get scared. I was sitting on the curb outside of a hospital that refused to care for me. A cab finally showed up and took us to the heavily gated military castle/hospital in another part of town. A small old Czech man was guarding the front gate with an old tv and rolled cigarettes, and he wore a uniform but it hadn’t been pressed or starched in years. Once again, in broken Czech, we explained through the metal gate that I was in pain and needed help. He gave us rudimentary but understandable directions on where to go after he let us pass through his barricade.

Our second emergency room had a door bell we had to ring for service. The entire hallway was empty, white, and clean with only two chairs available for patients, which could either be a good sign or a bad sign. The good sign being that they keep people healthy enough here to not have to need to see an internal specialist, the bad sign being no one actually comes for help. A haggard looking nurse opened the door to Kisha and I. She had clearly been sleeping and wasn’t up for having a conversation in Czech or English. I asked her if she spoke English and she nodded through her lucid dream. I explained I was in pain and couldn’t stand up right and that there was something wrong with my digestive system. I didn’t even mention I was diabetic because I was afraid of being turned away again, which is fucked up I have to leave out a pretty important detail to be seen by the Czech medical system. She held her finger up to give her a minute and she went back into her clinical abyss.

The two of us shrugged. After a minute the sleepy nurse returned and motioned for me to come with her. This was twice the progress I had made at the last hospital, so it seemed promising. The emergency room here was modern but it had common communist features in certain areas. While most of the medical technology was updated, their measuring systems, color schemes, and signage was a bit archaic. She sat me in a chair where I spoke with a Czech doctor who was stationed at a computer. At his station was a beer mug. A large glass of beer with about an inch of what I assumed to be beer. Because let’s just fuck this night up a little more. Maybe the tired nurse was drunk, who knows. I messaged Kisha over Facebook Messenger to keep her updated on my progress and about the speakeasy ER I was cautiously waiting in.

The Czech doctor spoke slow English with me so we could both understand each other. I explained I had some serious joint pain in my hips, knees, and back, that my blood sugar had been very unstable for about two weeks, and that my stomach was hurting from the amount of liquid and food I was eating to remedy the bouts of hypoglycemia. He asked which medications I was on and I wrote down a list and dosages, all of which are known here in the Czech Republic. The nurse brought me over to a gurney and told me to lie down. She tested my blood pressure, my slightly elevated temperature, and listened to my breathing. She pounded on my back exactly where it hurt and massaged my stomach for signs of pain. She took some blood and even started to smile a bit as she entered her professional routine. The nurse walked away and returned from an old medicine cabinet with a glass one of these:

“We need your urine.”

Totally unaware this hospital also doubled as a center for alchemy in the 1900s, I heaved myself off of the gurney and towards the door marked “WC.” Inside the bathroom that was also a storage closet, I held the glass cylinder and sized it up to the toilet I was supposed to be using. Everything in Europe was tiny except for this glass cylinder. I had to do some surveying measurements before actually peeing because I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to follow the nurse’s instructions exactly as she had planned. I moved around in the small space, crouching and eyeing and analyzing and studying. How am I going to pee in this?

Eventually I managed without knocking any shelves over or causing a scene and returned to the desk with the elusive elixir. I noticed the beer mug on the desk again. Maybe that was someone else’s pee, I thought. Maybe in this hospital, as long as you’re peeing into anything made out of glass, it counts as a valid urine sample. Maybe a Czech mystic will appear and grant me knowledge on future philosophy. Maybe this was like rubbing a lamp to them.

The nurse gave me more tests. My torso was x-rayed for the pain I was in and I was given a sonogram with an amount of lube only suitable for wrestling. The staff was nice but quiet. I wasn’t talking much just because I didn’t know if they could understand me, but when spoken to in English, I made sure to return my speech at the same speed. After resting for a bit longer under a hospital blanket that was most likely flammable, the doctor came back and told me I had a bacterial infection to be treated with antibiotics. At least the mystery was solved about why I was barely functioning over the last two weeks. No more math or diluting dosages to ensure safety. I even got a shot in my ass for the pain I was in. I’m still unclear what it was, but as a tattooed diabetic person, I can handle needles pretty well. The pain in my hips and knees subsided and I felt less tension in my stomach than I had earlier in the night. So far so good. Kisha and I thanked the nurse and doctor profusely and left the hospital as the birds were going crazy in the early morning dawn.

We took one of the trams that were now operating in the early morning to the 24 hour pharmacy. Less than three minutes and five dollars later, we were walking out of the pharmacy with antibiotics in hand. Our adventure ended at the Tesco near Kralovo Pole. We bought cheese and more snacks just in case my blood sugar was still going low. I’m so lucky to have Kisha here with me. She initially friended me on Facebook almost a year ago when I had just decided to move to the Czech Republic. I was being given an absurd amount of misinformation from Czechs, EU nationals, and non-EU citizens about how I should immigrate properly as an American, and as a fellow American expat, she set the record straight for me. She answered all of my questions patiently and took the time to explain the visa process, the trade license, and what life is like in Brno. We had been talking for roughly six months before we had even met at a coffee shop near my house. I couldn’t have done this without her and I tell my parents that all the time. There’s no way I could have reached the level of success I’ve had in a foreign country without her help. She took time out of her evening to take me to the ER for the whole night and had the patience to battle Czech medical bureaucracy one hospital at a time. I’m incredibly thankful for her friendship.

A few days later, I’m at home taking a few days off of work because the antibiotics I was given are creating a great wave of Kanagawa in my stomach. I’m no longer in pain but I’m extremely tired and getting back on a normal eating schedule that doesn’t include pounding an entire bag of Skittles once a day is a bit of a challenge. I’m drinking lots of fluids and my parents text me every few hours to see how I’m doing. I emailed my doctor about what to do with my digestive system so now I’m taking probiotics and antibiotics. I wonder if there’s just “biotics?” If I can untether myself from the bathroom for a few minutes, I should be able to go back to work on Thursday. I only have a few more weeks left at the school before I start my new job next month, and I really didn’t need my body to give up on me this week. I’m starting to go a little stir crazy from spending so much time resting in bed but I’ve been hanging out with kitty and we started watching war movies even before I found out Gunny died.

And so ends our third Czech healthcare system adventure. To sum up: if you’re going to die, just make sure you die at the correct hospital.

"Lord, beer me strength."

I've been sitting on this post for a while because I'm not sure how to address certain things without getting a lot of flak for them, but fuck it. 

I haven't been to an AA meeting in almost six months. Part of this is due to the geographic isolation of Brno and the lack of English speaking meetings. When I first arrived, I made a call to a number listed for expat meetings and discovered that because so few people attended, it eventually disbanded. Like many websites in the Czech Republic, the directory hadn't been updated in a few years. Larger cities such as Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, and Bratislava are more likely to have more than one English meeting since they have larger populations than Brno and many English speaking expats have chosen to settle in those places. So if I'd like to attend a meeting, the closest one is almost two hours away. 

I live in an alcohol dominated culture here in the Czech Republic. This wasn't my intention upon moving here because let's face it: if I'm going to relapse, this was a really expensive way to go about it. Czechs drink more beer than any place else in the world at roughly 43 gallons per person per year. If you lived here during the 13th century and stole hops, your punishment was death, and Pilsner style beers originated from the Czech city of Plzen. People often drink their beer out on the streets due to lax open container laws, and there's multiple pubs and restaurants specializing in the nation's obsession on every block . Drinking seems to be a way of life here. I'm not sure if it's solely based on alcoholism, but it's definitely conjoined with celebration. Christmas and Easter markets feature mulled spiced wine and different styles of Moravian lager. Even older pagan traditions incorporate more modern styles of liquid celebration, the next one being on the 30th of April where an effigy of a witch is constructed from straw and then burned to the ground to welcome the season of spring. Moravia, the historical country where Brno is located, is infiltrated every year by tourists looking for good wine and cheer, both of which are usually absent in their home countries.

To be honest, it hasn't bothered me that much. My obsession to drink is gone but I'm still very aware and alert of my surroundings. I can't let my guard down at anytime and I need to stay attentive if I'm going to maintain the current spree of not fucking up my life. I've turned down drink tickets at shows and no one seems to care if I ask for water, even though it is almost always served in a beer mug. After a show a while back, a few people outside were smoking a joint and they asked if I wanted to smoke. I politely declined and he said "I didn't know people could be sober from marijuana." Everyone's definition of "sober" is different, but I sluffed it off with "Well if I smoke then I'll definitely drink." They got a laugh out of it, I got a laugh out of it, and I continued on with my night. It would be silly to move to another country and think you're not going to encounter any kind of drinking or drug culture, but a short absent minded change of heart can quickly deter things from the path I've chosen for my life to take.

During my sobriety (I no longer use the term "recovery" because it makes me feel my decision to abstain from alcohol makes me weak, helpless, and powerless), there have definitely been a few evenings or circumstances which have led me to grit my teeth and feel like I am really in need of a meeting. When these moments arose, I was quick to talk with a sober friend or just message someone who supports my sobriety. I know what my triggers are, everything from old friends to sunflower seeds, and sobriety allows me to continue being sober, as redundant as that sounds. The reason I haven't been to a meeting in six months, or gone four hours out of my way to attend one, is because I have learned to cope with life's unfortunate circumstances as they come up, something the AA program draws you away from.

I first started going to meetings when I was in rehab because at the time, I didn't have a choice. All of the addicts and alcoholics would sit in a cafeteria and a former resident of our program would come in to discuss the "only three ways" of staying sober: going to meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the program. I was scared out of my wits. I certainly couldn't go back to the life I had barely maintained of drinking every day and destroying everything in my path, and if these people were speaking the truth, I needed to hike on those paths, too. My life depended on it, as I thought. 

My nickname in college.

I was in rehab for 21 days. Upon being released into the wild, I started attending one or two meetings a week depending on my schedule. At all of these meetings, this three-pronged approach of attending meetings, getting a sponsor, and working the steps was echoed throughout all of the rooms. But one narrative particularly stood out. Time and again, I encountered people (and I'm going to paraphrase because I still respect the anonymity of the program) who would say something along the lines of "You know I've tried to get sober eight or nine times now and this program really works. You gotta keep coming back and work the steps and get a sponsor and find your higher power." The problem with this statement is that the same person would say this every time between those eight or nine attempts of getting sober. Newly sober folks are thrust into the realm of Alcoholics Anonymous without even being asked what sort of path they would be interested in taking to sobriety. It's assumed that AA works as it's popular and many people who don't have the resources to go to rehab or treatment can attend for free. 

I've read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous twice, once when I was "forced" to get sober at age 16 after I was caught for under age drinking and again when I entered treatment at 27. I underlined passages that made sense to me, or sentences that resonated with the person in me who really wanted to be sober. Little quips and phrases are common in the book and "The Program," as in there's always a proverb to accompany every problem someone brings to the table. Tough time staying sober for the long haul?

Take it one day at a time. But things are so complicated and I'm worried about drinking!

Easy does it. There are even entire chapters dedicated to atheists and women as they weren't equally represented in AA and were completely inferior to the white men who wrote the book prior to the last World War. I came into AA skeptical. As an atheist (that's probably the most pretentious way I've ever started a sentence), I don't believe in a god, gods, or anything that can assume a consciousness and change the direction of my life so that it becomes significant to me. My viewpoints aren't particularly militant and I don't go out of my way to address them unless I'm asked. The idea of finding a "Higher Power" didn't sit with me well. If I don't believe in religion or have a faith of any kind, how am I supposed to apply energy to something that is supposedly going to help me stay sober? 

One of AA's popular credos is "Well, your Higher Power can be anything. It can be a doorknob!" Which...doesn't sell that point particularly well. Later I'll be instructed to turn my will and care over to this doorknob "as I understand it" and expect it to alleviate me of the perils of alcoholism, a scientific problem in need of a scientific solution. I don't understand god because it doesn't exist for me. For a while I even tried making Jeff Lebowski my literal High(er) Power to no avail, just to see if I can really buy into what Bill W was attempting to do for people like me. Clearly AA didn't take other subsets of society into account when creating the literature pushed on people from the very beginning. I was getting uncomfortable following the program. Another popular AA motto is "fake it til you make it," and if you know me at all, I don't fake shit. In a way, I was expected to not only "check my beliefs at the door" and to follow a path to sobriety which I was told was the only path from the beginning. I couldn't see any correlation between 11 of the 12 Steps of AA and me staying sober. What did me divulging my entire sexual history, my fears, my wrongs, and my resentments to another person have to do with me drinking? What did me giving up my power and assuming powerlessness to a program keep me sober? What was the scientific evidence behind any of this?

Overtime, I started going to meetings less and less. I came to realize I didn't have to be dependent on AA to stay sober. As long as I was keeping myself busy, not isolating, and not putting myself in risky situations, I had this sobriety thing on lock. AA masks its acceptance of all people due to the Third Tradition (there are 12 Traditions, as well): the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So in short, if you want to stop drinking, AA has a seat for you. However, if you have any disbelief in a Higher Power or have no interest in getting a sponsor, the judgement in that room will be paramount to any shame you've ever experienced. I was told I would drink if I didn't have a sponsor, and I haven't had a sponsor for two years. People knew I was skeptical of many different aspects of the program except for one, being AA is where I can meet other people like me. Unfortunately there aren't many other arenas I can navigate that can accommodate the same groups of people. Cruising the subreddit r/stopdrinking helped, and staying in touch with the sober people who did accept my different points of view also helped. 

So the less and less I came to meetings, the more and more people stopped talking to me. I had met numerous friends through the program over the 18ish months I was attending. I met people my own age, people who grew up in houses just down the street from me, and people who were adamant that following the Big Book was the only way to achieve sobriety. It seemed hard for people to understand that there was more than one path to achieve the same thing. AA isn't a one-size-fits-all program, and while it got me off on the right foot, it abandoned me in the long run. Even though there was a chair figuratively saved for me at every meeting, it was clear I wasn't welcome if I didn't strongly believe in the fundamental tenets. Watching people come back to meetings after they relapse was one of the most cringeworthy experiences I've ever had. Someone in the program would have a few months of sobriety and then come back to a meeting a while later and announce they only had a few days, or a week. The judgement in the room would become suffocating, face after face of growing, unanimous disappointment in someone who had they "came to meetings, got a sponsor, and worked the program" would have remained sober. In AA, there's a response to everything. "Well he worked the program but he didn't really try."

Only going to one meeting a week won't guarantee sobriety!" "The book says 'half measures availed us nothing' so of course they aren't sober -- they didn't follow the steps correctly!"

I knew I was socially cut out from the program and the people I met when I had my going away show in September. I had two previous sold out shows when I was producing One Laugh at a Time, a show featuring sober comics in whatever capacity as long as they were committed to sobriety. The sober community saw it as a chance for fellowship and enjoying comedy at the same time, and it was great to have people like me on the same line up. For my going away show, I had my favorite Seattle people perform with me on "Liz Czechs Out," the show that inspired the naming of this blog. I advertised for about a month and I was able to have it at the club I spent most of my time at. The crowd was reserved but fun and the other comics gave me a card before the night was over. After the show I thanked friends, family, old boyfriends, and former colleagues who came to celebrate my coming adventure. The audience filed out of the club and I finally had a moment to catch my breath, and that's when I realized that not one person I had met in AA during my two years in Seattle came to my show. 

The program that was supposed to free me of resentments was only creating them. Sometimes I meet sober people and they assume I'm in AA just based on the fact I'm sober. I don't trash the program or speak negatively of it to their face, but I politely imply I was able to find help for my sobriety elsewhere. One guy in Brno messaged me a while back after finding out I was sober. We exchanged some pleasantries but in the end, his tenacious attitude about AA was extremely off putting. He messaged me a while back asking "Still sober?" under the guise of care.

Yep, I'm still sober. I live an environment not conducive at all to sobriety yet I've fallen asleep every night without the use of alcohol. I show up on time 20 minutes early to everything, and I know when to separate myself from situations that might make me uncomfortable. I keep myself busy with writing, working, learning, and staying in contact with people who accept me for who I am, the beliefs I have, and the methods I choose to support sobriety. AA fronts itself as an all encompassing program, but after enough meetings and experience, I ultimately felt alone. I feel alone here in Brno sometimes, but this was me choosing to be alone. We all chose to be sober, so who cares about how we get there as long as it's the common end result?