Czech Healthcare Adventure! Part IV

"The flu hit late that year" will officially be my "the sea was angry that day, my friends." 

I honestly thought the bacterial infection I had would have been the end of my health issues for the month, maybe even for the year. I was a hopeful adult child staring up into the cosmos over Brno after I should have been in bed hours before. This wasn't the "what am I going to do with my career" gazing that some of us do. I didn't want to become an astronaut or a president or a truck driver like I actually wanted to be at one point. I just wanted to be healthy. I'm not going to say the universe had other plans for me because the universe isn't capable of designing paths for people. But I did have a string of health-related events I'm hoping ends with the norovirus. 

Ah yes, the norovirus: amphetamine for bowels and gasoline for the highest of fevers. The antibiotics I took to clear the bacterial infection wasn't effective against the dormant virus and the contagion reared its pestilent head right after I crawled into bed last Friday. My body clamped up like a fleshy vice. I was freezing under my blankets but knew it was impossible due to the summer temperatures that have descended upon Brno and most of Europe. My spine and thighs were fraught a seething tension that only let up if I squeezed myself into the smallest of fetal positions, like a sore muscle engulfing my entire anatomy. I hadn't felt this sick since 2007 when my college boyfriend and I were horrendously ill. We slept in separate rooms to try to avoid spreading the collegiate-bound plague to each other, but it was only a matter of time before widespread damage was felt from the bedroom to the dining room floor where I was sleeping temporarily.

I called my mom via FaceTime from within my FEMA blanket shelter. I told her something wasn't right, even though my blood sugars had been back to normal for over a week. This was something else, an ugly side of science reserved for medical experiments during the thick of wartime and that sticky ambiguous film covering plastic toys for children under 5. She convinced me to seek help like I had two weeks before and I dialed 112 in hopes of a better result. 

Me: Mluvis anglicky?

Operator: Yes, do you need help?

Me: Yes, I need to see a doctor. 

Operator: What is wrong with you?

Me: I have a high fever and I can't untwist my body. 

I realized "untwist" was probably one of the last remaining vocabulary words a Czech bilingual speaker has yet to learn in English, but I continued. 

Me: I'm very sore in my back and legs. 

Operator: And where do you live?

I gave the woman my address and she spoke some Czech to a colleague just out of earshot. She returned to the phone with what seemed like good news.

Operator: We will send you a doctor. 

Me: You are sending me a doctor, or do I need to go to the hospital?

Operator: We will send you a doctor. Thank you goodbye. 

She hung up and I had zero idea what to expect. Who was going to show up at my house at 4am on a Saturday morning? Dr. Who? At first I thought it might have been one of those doctors with the reflective plate on their head and a stethoscope around their neck regardless of whether or not the situation required its use. Can an IV fit in one of those vintage leather doctor bags? Do they even still make those? I had a lot of questions which were soon met with disappointing answers. 

My doorbell rang. Like an old Czech babicka, I hobbled down the stairs draped in the blanket that's the exact same color of my favorite dog. I opened my door to two gruff EMTs wearing bright orange protective gear and a mullet that was a little late to the party. I greeted them with my typical salutation I've been using for the past six months. 

Me: English?

Them: Ne. Ceske? 

Me: Ne. 

So we didn't speak the other's respective language. We stared at each other while the birds chirped and greeted the day with a better sounding conversation. They spoke in Czech and then said to me, "Come. Insurance card. Passport." Okay, so it's not a totally lost cause. Usually when Czech people say they don't speak English, they understand some to an extent, or they only know certain important words, sort of like how I speak Czech. I went inside still wearing my blanket and got my bag, cell phone charger, Kindle, and any medication. I said goodbye to Patrick and told him I loved him before I locked my door. 

The EMTs motioned for me to get in back of a bright green and orange ambulance. Once I was inside on a stretcher, they attempted to remove the best blanket in the entire world. My fever was keeping my bones tight and close to my body, so any release of appendages was hurting pretty much everywhere. I pulled up the hood on my hoodie and crossed my arms. The EMT with the mullet sat down next to me and yanked my arm out straight. He could see me shaking from being cold but mistook it for being scared. With my arm in one of his hands, he used the other to press lightly in the air like to tell someone to take it easy. I told him "zima," Czech for "cold" and "winter." He nodded at my poor pronunciation. "Take off," he said pointing to my hoodie. 

I realized I didn't put on a bra before leaving the house. I had thought about it but it would have required more angular movements than I wanted to commit to. So I sat there with no blanket or hoodie literally freezing my tits off in a wife beater, my chosen attire for time spent at home. The mullet grabbed both of my arms and held them out straight in front of me. He was being more forceful than he needed to be. You'd think EMTs would show some finesse given their profession but this felt more like I was an action figure, simply being moved into whatever position they see fit. The guy started hitting both of my wrists, which hurt a lot considering my bones were already in pain. Each impact was like a shock to my skeleton and the norovirus was amplifying every sensation I was feeling physically. The EMT showed me a needle so that I knew he was going to draw blood. I'm a diabetic person with tattoos so I don't exactly have an aversion to needles, but this was different. Because of my fever, my veins weren't showing up at all, which lead to multiple attempts at finding them intravenously. He spoke to his buddy about what I assumed was his lack of luck. Eventually they found a vein in my right arm and he gave me back my hoodie to cover up. 

As soon as I draped myself and recoiled my limbs back in like a dying spider, the EMT pushed me back on the stretcher and took the hoodie he had just returned to me. With no warning, he yanked up my shirt and listened to my breathing. I couldn't even look at myself. I found other points in the ambulance to look at. Eventually he started pushing on my stomach and asking "yes" or "no," but I didn't know what kind of answer he was looking for. "Yes, it feels fine." "Yes, that hurts." I relied on facial expressions without making eye contact to convey the pain. I was sensitive to pressure since my stomach and bowels had become completely unreliable. Have you ever had a cat knead your stomach only to feel like you're going to totally shit yourself if you don't stop him right that minute?

The EMT recorded his results while I rolled over and pulled my shirt back down. I started crying. I'm incredibly tough with physical pain, but this was more than I could bear, especially with a fever. I was embarrassed and exposed. I didn't know these people and they weren't overly concerned with my general comfort inside this mobile ER. I just wanted to feel better but getting to that point seemed like a challenge. I want to communicate effectively, but how? I suppose it was my own fault for not learning enough Czech sooner, but even in the medical world, there are certain words in English that don't exist in Czech. I felt stuck and now I was actually scared. 

Mullet strapped me in the stretcher and told me "Hospital." Most of my responses at this point were either nodding or simply "thank you." The ride to Bohunice, the biggest hospital in Brno, only took 15 minutes. It was hard to tell where I was going since I was on an actual road and not a tramline for once. On arrival, they wheeled me down and into a completely empty ER. It was dark and poorly lit but all of the technology seemed up to date and identifiable. The EMT unbuckled me from the stretcher and told me to sit in a chair for a nurse. Finding someone who spoke even the littlest amount of English proved difficult, but I soon saw a nurse to whom I could speak in just words and not complete sentences. I handed her my passport, insurance card, and the paperwork I had with me from my last ER visit two weeks before. It was in Czech and possibly provided some answers as to why I was in the condition that I was, but in a more detailed fashion.

The nurse took my vital signs and told me initially I didn't have a fever. I was skeptical since on the surface I was burning up but inside I was freezing like the frigid hipster I am. The nurse yanked out my arm to draw more blood. She wrapped a rubber band around my bicep and knocked on my elbow ditch as if she was expecting someone to answer. When she inserted the needle, the pain got to me and I tried to retract but she looked me dead in the face and yelled "NO." Ah, okay. Sorry. It's not like I was trying to be difficult or to fuck up the end of her night shift. But that shit legitimately hurt. 

She then hooked me up to an IV and I tried with all of my stupid might to not flinch or move. I started crying again because I just wanted this to be over and I wanted some answers as to what the fuck was going on. I figured it was some kind of flu but wasn't aware of how severe. I kept my parents in the loop. My dad was in the hospital at the time as well with his own issues so we sent IV selfies to each other. After an hour, my bag had emptied and the nurse came out with my results. By this time I wasn't as shaky as I was and felt more like my temperature had returned to its rightful baseline. I definitely had a flu but my only instructions upon exit were to take ibuprofen to keep my fever down and drink lots of water to remedy the literal shit storm brewing within. She said it was good I wasn't vomiting, so I had that going for me!... She also urged me to have a friend come pick me up to take me home. I don't have a lot of friends here, and the friends I do have are carless or would straight up tell me to go fuck myself if I asked them for a ride home from the hospital at 8am on a Saturday morning. 

I paid the 90 crown ($4) fee for my discharge and plodded around the hospital wearing my blanket cape and smudgy glasses. Through a maze of linoleum and indecipherable signage, I followed my blip on Google Maps to try to find my way to the bus stop. The complex at Bohunice has many floors and many of the floors look exactly the same. It was quiet, like a medical ghost town since no one was working on Saturday morning. I followed signs to what I thought were exits but then they turned out to be offices. I pushed my glasses up my nose and tried to keep the sweatpants I bought for rehab above the edges of my slippers that I also bought for rehab. I didn't look my best.

I plopped down at the bus stop and realized I barely had any food at home, so before going home, I stopped at the grocery store up the street. Lots of Czech women do their grocery shopping first thing in the morning and somehow they all found the time to do their hair and make up beforehand. Enter the haggard fleece-draped biohazard who bought soy milk and crackers. I returned home to drink as much water as I felt comfortable and hung out with my kitty. Six days later I'm still tired and groggy but the wretched fever I had has been exorcised. I got three decent sized bruises as free souvenirs and my bowels are mostly subdued and no longer having sudden and lengthy surprise parties. 

I just want to be healthy. That's all I want. I mean I want everyone to be healthy and operating at full capacity, but I just want to be my best self and it's hard when your body won't let you do that. I don't know where I got the norovirus from. It could have been anywhere in Wroclaw and Vienna or somewhere in between. I missed the burning witches festivals and the 1st of May holiday in the Czech Republic where you're supposed to kiss the person you love under a cherry tree, but there's always next year. I'm going to roll over and kiss my cat instead.