Invalid in Madrid

Since Tommy has been having all of the fun with this blog of ours, I decided it's time for me to contribute a little cheer and post about my debilitating injury that waited to happen until we moved to a country where we can't communicate with...well...almost anyone.  Except for fellow expats and a few helpful Spaniards wanting to practice their English with us.  As this uniformly does not include the medical professional portion of the Spanish population, you can probably imagine that the experience has been pretty horrific and frustrating.

People who speak English and/or Spanish in Spain

Last Monday, I awoke with some lower back pain. Weird, random, but nothing too crazy.  Thinking it was just a stiff muscle from a crappy mattress, I proceeded with my normal daily activities.  Throughout the week it became progressively worse, until one night after sitting at dinner for almost 3 hours, I stood up to leave and could barely walk.

I literally limped home, leaning on Tommy the entire way, until I was able to crawl into bed where I stayed for the entire weekend.

Back pain is the worst, let me tell you.  And a normal functioning back is probably one of the things about our health that we take most for granted.

Do you like doing any of these things?

Yeah?  Well, so do I, and now I want nothing more than to merrily lean backwards whilst balancing on one leg in the body of an aardvark, now that I can't do it without excruciating pain.  And if you can't tell what those other movements are in my artistic renditions of the human body, then, just be grateful you can do them.

So anyway, the day after the peak of my pain, I made call after call to doctors in the area, trying to schedule an appointment.  I don't think I can count on my two hands how many times I mumbled in horrible and embarrassingly broken Spanish, "Habla usted Inglés?" and likewise, the number of times I was HUNG UP ON.  Tommy tells me it was probably because I ran out of minutes on my phone, but I am certain that I was hung up on at least 4 times.

After nearly an entire day of frustrating Spanglish and miscommunication, I was finally able to get a doctor to come to our apartment.  Finally something good about this experience - Thanks Spain.  Even better, the doctor spoke some English.  Awesome, right?  Not exactly.  She only knew enough English to tell me to lie down and pull down my pants so she could stab me with a needle, and to tell me that I needed to learn Spanish.  But not before asking Tommy to run to the "chino" (they call convenience stores here "chino," which literally translates as "Chinese"...hahahaha) to get rubbing alcohol so she could sterilize it...  ???  With each passing moment I felt less and less comforted by the presence of this doctor.

Do you think it's emergent?
Not yet.
...?
If it doesn't get better, then maybe yes.
What? When? What is it?

She scribbled something onto a sheet of paper.
Receta (prescription)

Concluding her visit, she diagnosed me with "lumbalgia," meaning "lower back pain."  That's not a diagnosis - that's why I called.

Six injections, dozens of pills, two in-office visits with two different doctors, and three prescriptions later, I am very slowly recovering.  After a zillion attempts at understanding and cross-referencing with a doctor friend from back home, I now realize that I am being drugged for one week to see if my symptoms go away, which they are expected to do.  If after one week the pain persists, the problem could be more serious and I will have to see a specialist.  I don't even want to think about how that visit might go.

So for now, I will just keep taking my drugs and hope for the best. 


- Jenine