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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Badger is better


I got one of those buggy things and put off doing anything about it until I collapsed almost lifeless into bed and felt almost too ill to move. There was no point going to doctor Mordor about this because in three years he has never examined me apart from taking my blood pressure and wishing me well ‘despite my problems’.

This is the same doctor who once prescribed medicine for a lump in the centre of my chest which turned out to be part of my rib cage.

Well I felt it one night and thought ‘has that always been there?’ which of course it has but you have these thoughts in the middle of sleepless nights when you think that death might suddenly sneak up on you unawares. So I was in doctor Mordor’s surgery a week or so later to get a script and I said I have this lump here and I am probably supposed to have it  - can you feel it for me - and he said I will give you a prescription for it - and I said no no I am sure it is a piece of bone - but there was no stopping him and there was nothing I could do to get him to touch it. He wears a white coat though.  

Perhaps he never examines anyone. I seem to be his youngest patient. Perhaps he works on the basis that all his patients are going to be dead within a week anyway so why bother examining them. To him I am a curiosity that I have survived so long even with a lump in the middle of my chest for which he prescribed who knows what. I actually had the script filled – it looked and tasted like chalk so I threw it away. I am taking a poll on which of us is more stupid.

You think I made that story up but it is a true story and it is how I know that there is no point in going to doctor Mordor for anything at all other than prescriptions for things I know I really do need and have needed since before I left Australia.  

I did confirm later with my niece doctor Lani that the lump is in fact part of my chest so was much more relaxed after that but when I can’t sleep I still play with it and wonder about death.

In any case I was too ill to get out of bed and I took my blood pressure which was 74/47 and I thought that did not look good because I think when they get to be the same you start flat-lining so Cate rang Doc Around the Clock who arrived within an hour and said I had a bug – relieved me of €230 - and gave me some scripts for some stuff to stop me from feeling quite so bad.

It was by now Saturday afternoon and there is a penalty for people who are ill after hours in Vienna. The penalty is actually for those who minister to them.

To celebrate the misfortune of these people - almost all the Apothekes in Vienna close. The few that do remain open shut their doors, turn off their lights and the one staff member on duty hides behind the counter.

Should you have the utter bad luck to need a script for urgent medicine to stave off death you will need to determine the one that is ‘open’ - and it is bloody hard to tell by looking at it – press the doorbell and wait – perhaps for a long time.

Someone may appear and open a tiny glass window in the door or in side panel in the window and you will hand over your script. They may reappear every now and again to shout at you.

They will then give you some medicine, take your money, turn the lights out and disappear.

This is how the Apothekes work after lunch time on Saturdays in Austria. My advice to you is do not get sick or go to another more civilised country where being sick outside business hours is not a crime.

I am much better now.

I have been cooking sensational meals for Liz and Darryl who have returned from Wales. 

15 comments:

  1. I just love the name "Mordor", sounds like something-someone from Harry Potter, so I'm guessing the paste he gave you was something from an old family "recipe". Now back to finish the rest of our blog post ....

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  2. Hey, who wants to be sick on weekends? Viennese take off work and illness Friday at noon and won't be back until Monday morning after nine. That's quite civilized, methinks. ;-)

    Btw, there is always the AKH. I have some experience with off hour visits to their emergency room, one at 1AM (thanks to my teenager having the great idea of ... oh well, who wants to know it?). I can assure you the doctors there are very competent and quite polite, really. In short, I love the AKH!

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  3. Feel better, Badger.

    I once got horrifically ill in Spain. After a week of my body rejecting itself in the most appalling fashions imaginable (and I'm a nurse), I finally went to a hospital and they took excellent care of me.

    I'd bring you chicken soup if I could.

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  4. Smartest thing I did was get scripts for Cipro and Zpak for hubs and I, emergency meds. Get them refilled every year too.

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  5. Oh sorry - I'm glad you're better :)

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  6. esbboston: I think it might have been spakfilla. And isn't it about time you did a new blog post?

    Merisi: Not me - I was too sick to go to the AKH - and I could not spell it the word is too long.

    Smedette: Hey - aren't you supposed to be coming to Vienna?

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  7. fmcgmcclic: I think I need to do that - getting sick in Vienna is too dangerous - although not as dangerous as China i bet.

    Alexia: Pretty good eh! And thanks - the cost scared the bugs out of me.

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  8. You had a question "Do a new blog post?" - I checked my recent publishing, and since September 13th I have published 5 posts, but they have been spread across 3 different blogs, 3 on My Worlds My Words My Worries, and then one each on Foe Toes and Finding The Cute of The Universe. BUT work got in the way the last few days as well, I ran into a stubborn 3 phase motor on a commercial building roof top that required a lot of ladder time, and I was so sore I could barely walk for the last two days since completing it. But at least I was able to figure out the problem and avoid the owner having to replace the condenser unit which probably would have been a 3000 dollar expense, so that made me feel good that I could take the problem to root cause (hopefully). Oh, I forgot, there would have been a crane rental charge as well, so probably a lot more than 3000.

    I am glad you are feeling better. I wandered through your Ireland photos, I need to go there some time, but my wife is not much of a traveler.

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  9. I see my doctor regularaly- last time he apologised for not being able to help! lol I have used him for 25 years. I think they are reps for drug companies and thats all.

    I hate going, there are so many sick people and remember "if you hang around with cripples you learn to limp" ( now brefore anyone gets ontheir high horse... I am ill) lol!!!!

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  10. I cycled through your comment form 10 times to see what the blogger system would give me for the silly captcha word I have to type in order to prove I am a human. So for your amusement to help you get well faster I came up with some definitions for *most* of them.

    Extism - religion for divorced people
    Prambase - where you put your prams
    Derbarru - this is bound to be an Australian word
    Outhrop - you might have guessed that this was the opposite of an inhrop, but its really an Outhrope with the e chopped off
    Hyder - someone inconspicuous who also lives in Hyde
    Chbarse - I can't tell you what this one means because it has a naughty word in it
    Boidone - this is what cannibals who don't know English very well say when they are finished cooking a man
    Wrellsh - How the Welsh pronounce the word Welsh after coming out of the dentist office.
    Minglyqd - what you say when you leave the Chinese ancient art museum
    Imbalo - what to yell out at the top of your lungs when you are working underneath a car that someone tries to start and drive away

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  11. And people wonder why Mozart died so young.

    Glad you're feeling better!

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  12. When I had to go to one of those out-of-hours Apothekes I had to pay by Bankomat because I didn't have any cash on me. Of course the Bankomat machine was nowhere near the tiny window so I had to write down my PIN number and give it to the pharmacist so that she could enter it herself. Only in Austria.

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  13. Alas, The Husband is in Berlin right now and will be in Vienna on Sunday.

    Where am I? Charlotte-Fucking-North Carolina.

    The Smedette is not pleased.

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  14. esbboston: Here I was thinking you only had time to do six jobs and one blog. Your word list is outstanding. You should get a job with Oxford.

    Simon: There is no danger of my doctor giving me any drugs.

    SK Waller: Sick on Saturday - Dead on Sunday

    viennesewaltz: They certainly do some strange things here

    smedette: Damnation: I was hoping to meet the wonderful smedette!

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