Getting Sick Abroad

Getting sick sucks, especially if you are away from home, homeland. There is nothing worse than having a medical emergency while traveling abroad. But don’t let that scare you off the plane. Take a few travel tips from a seasoned traveler…aka your fav ex-patriot.

My parents have made dozens of cross Atlantic trips to visit our Norwegian relatives and me without a hitch. After a recovering from 4 different surgeries, my 79-year-old dad attained his goal to fly to Switzerland and almost didn’t make it back when he became gravely ill. Fortunately our daughter, a pediatrician, insisted we call an emergency doctor who demanded we take him to the hospital immediately where they put him on intravenous antibiotics and saved his life. A simple urinary tract infection had developed into a life threatening sepsis. Luckily, we had a Frenchman aboard, who spoke both English and French and could interpret in the ER. But in the course of ensuing chaos, it made me realize how frightening illness can be for someone traveling abroad especially if you don’t speak the local language. When packing your bags be sure to include these items.

Medication for the duration of your stay in your carry on bag
Carry insurance and medical cards and a photocopy of prescriptions
Type up a short resume of your recent medical history
List emergency numbers of contacts in your homeland
If possible, obtain the number of a friend living in the area you are visiting (this is especially reassuring to parents when their sons/daughters go abroad)
In the event of serious illness call SOS Médecins
When in doubt, go directly to the emergency room

In Switzerland and France, public hospitals will admit you, but you may have to pay a fee, like the $500 up front that my dad paid at the Hospitale de Nyon before services could be rendered.

Jim & Lenore McKinzie in Switzerland

The medical system varies in each European country. In some places, doctors still make house calls. Many medical people have independent practices in apartment buildings or a room of their homes. Unlike our clinics or convenient urgent care centers in the states, often times in Europe you will have to go to separate laboratories to have blood drawn and/or X rays taken. Pharmacies display the universal sign, a green cross. In Europe pharmacists will answer simple medical questions and can advise you on minor problems. Major hotels have a doctor on staff or will call a local doctor for you.

Accept that medical practices in other countries, though different from those at home, are not necessarily bad. For example in France and Switzerland, prescriptions are not counted out by the dose, but boxed in plastic in 7 day to one month doses.

During my overseas stint, I have been hospitalized after accidents and illnesses, for surgery and childbirth. I‘ve seen my fair share of doctors, but I can assure you that like people, there are good and bad ones everywhere regardless of nationality.

Alors santé! (Here’s to your health) Bon voyage!

Self-Service Airlines Increase Frequent Flyers’ Frustrations

The worst part of flying somewhere, is knowing you have to also return from your destination. The round trip ticket is no guarantee you’ll get back home, especially when it comes to international travel.

I flew across the Atlantic countless times with my fussy French kids, so that they could stay connected to their American heritage. Imagine Nathalie’s surprise when our roles reversed at the Minneapolis airport. Grown daughter consoles infantile mother throwing tantrum at the Delta ticket counter, « Ma’am, I cannot issue your boarding pass when you have no ticket. ».

Like millions of passengers, we were stranded in Geneva due to snow storms, when our KLM flight to Minneapolis was canceled. Days later we were rerouted on Continental. However, at the time of departure, Continental personnel in Switzerland said, « Madame may board the plane ; Monsieur may not. »

In the catch 22 of 21st century air travel, you may be assigned a seat electronically without a ticket. The same scenario occurred in reverse. Gerald flew home without incident, but a week later my return ticket disappeared in cyberspace.

Stress begins with on -line ticket purchase, which is subject to change in availability and price during the millisecond from booking to buying. Seat reservations may be made 24 hours ahead, but there is a hitch. Tickets purchased on a European carrier cannot be processed by an American one, even when it’s the same flight. The KLM website tells you to confirm with Delta ; Delta site sends you back to KLM. Welcome to the pass-the-buck-diplomacy of airline travel. Due to economic hard times, companies such as Delta, KLM, Air France formed a partnership ; however, they still act like rivals.

Inclement weather, personnel strikes, terrorist threats, mechanical errors, flight delays are the norm ; what is not normal is blaming the passenger. Airline staff reprimanded me every step of my journey. The first KLM agent yelled at me for not using the check-in machine to print my boarding pass.

« YOUR machine is unable to recognize MY booking code. »

After staring at the computer for ten minutes, she says, « You’re on the flight to Amsterdam, but I have no record of a ticket of to Geneva. Check at the Delta/KLM/Air France ticket purchasing desk. »

There, another Delta employee, read a novel while waiting on hold on the phone to solve the mystery. « Delta has no record your ticket either . Ma’am, what have you done ? »

Me ? Blame the snow, late incoming arrival, maintenance difficulties, but don’t hold the passenger responsible for airline snafus.

« I suggest you fly to Amsterdam and sort it out there . »

You must be kidding me !

I suggest, « You check again ! »

Finally, she confirmed my status through Air France. However, she insisted she couldn’t print out a boarding pass for my onward flight. I insisted she could. « I’ve flown hundreds of times and always been issued a boarding pass for the connecting flight !»

Finally with two scraps of paper stating my name, seat number and departure time, I boarded the KLM/Delta flight to Geneva. The flight was delayed an hour due to mechanical difficulties. Halfway over the Atlantic, the captain announced, « Great news, folks. Even with our late departure, though scheduled arrival was 6 :45, due to strong cross winds we should touch down at 7 :02. With our taxi time, we should be at the arrival gate at 7 :21. My connecting flight had me on plane boarding for Geneva fifteen minutes before my scheduled arrival time. Even without the delay, I would never make the connection. So in Amsterdam, once again, I was invited to the tranfer desk for rebooking. There, a sky-blue uniformed KLM agent blocked the guichet entrance and barked like a drill sergeant.

« Use the machine ! »

« Your machine reserved me a seat on flight without a ticket, and booked me on a connecting flight before my first flight was scheduled to land. I want to speak to a human being. »

She waved me past, snarling, « Lady, this is a self-service airline ! »

« Yeah, well your self-service sucks ! »

Sadly, the only satisfaction of flying these days is throwing the last punch.

A Word A Day Keeps Doctor Away

I subscribe to A. Word. A. Day, though anyone who never deletes messages and regularly receives warnings, “your mailbox is full, you may no longer send or receive mail “ has no business collecting more words. But there are too many wonderful expressions out there.Like the word that flashed on my computer screen today. Nihilarian comes from Latin, nihil, for nothing, and means one who feels their work, is useless. Like it sounds, this word is hilarious, so LOL, which in SMS speak, means laugh out loud, (not love a lot, like I thought.) Great word. Describes my life.

Probably depicts your life too especially if you work in business, government, military, or education, like me. Unless self-employed, like it or not, we are cogs in the machine. My medium, education, epitomizes bureaucratic redundancy. Bureaucrats love to develop new theories and adopt new strategies. It makes administrators feel creative.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in education. No one loves the double speak, gobbledy gook, psycho babble more than school officials who pontificate on how to learn, what to learn and what constitutes knowledge. Consequently every so often, educators worldwide are obliged to rewrite the curriculum, so that it can sit on a shelf for the next decade until it is time to pass accreditation again.

At our last staff meeting, gearing up for our next accreditation, our director urged us to sign up for horizontal and vertical assessment teams. Horizontal squad? That’s for me, I thought, slumping in my seat, eyes at half-mast, nodding off.

In the education factory, caught up in the frenzy of curriculum, reports, assessments, accreditation, and accountability, I wonder what happened to the good ol’ days when all we did was teach? I spend more of my waking hours in meetings and in front of computer screens diagramming and documenting data, than in contact with kids.

The school system offers a parody of real life. Committee membership reigns over thought processes.A famous French leader, De Gaulle, coined the adage, “Want to bury a problem, form a committee”. Politicians taught us that.In the USA, we can also thank government for No Child Left Behind legislation, which as any teacher knows, is still wreaking havoc in our public school systems.

Schools offer a smorgasbord of committee choices.Strategic Planning Assembly. Campus Development Group. Ecology Awareness Association.Pilot Program for Global Responsiveness.And now our new Horizontal Assessment Team.

Alas in an era where technology makes us slave to machines and human contact is at a all time low, at an age when the food we eat, air we breath, and water we drink can be hazardous for our health, words remain a harmless indulgence. A word a day dropping out of cyberspace for free is a mini gift for our minds. When the drudgery of your job gets you down, google Wordsmith.org. for an environmental-friendly, safe, cheap chuckle a day.