The Next Time You Complain About Your HMO...

...put a sock in it and be thankful you're not seeking medical attention in a  developing country.

As many of you have read in the previous post I recently competed in a World Cup event and was defeated by a stronger and more experienced "Team Lowenbrau." After 6 days of tenderness (and doing aerobics on it, hosting a party on my feet all night and riding 20 miles on a mountain bike) I decided to see a doc about my ankle.

After the usual touching, pressing, "press against my hand, now pull against my hand" exam he diagnosed a painful but essentially harmless bone bruise. He said that, "while most people would have stayed off their feet for a couple days after an injury like this, Seth and I don't appear to be very normal when it comes to self imposed inactivity." So he gave me strict order to stay off it for 1 week and go get an X-ray done just to be sure.

If I'm nothing else, I am a good patient and when a doc says to do something, I don't argue. He gave me the directions to a diagnostic facility in Tbilisi that could do the X-ray. I found the building on the main drag in town. I walked into a reception area with one man whose arm was in a sling and what appeared to be his father, his wife and his father's friend who all seemed to be sitting apart from him and taking turns making fun of the injured guy.

There was no one behind the reception desk. After sitting patiently like a good little Westerner waiting to be served and watching patient after patient walk in the front door and just go right on back into the hospital I said, to heck with it and walked back myself. Imagine going to see your doctor, finding no one sitting at reception and just saying, "Aw heck." and walk into the back past all the nurses and just busting right in on him in an exam room. that's essentially what I did and the hilarious part is that no one even blinked. 

After I asked for someone who spoke English a man called for a woman who would end up being my X-ray technician. She led me back to a dimly lit room which, at first glance appeared to be some sort of storage area for old medical equipment. There were stacks of machines with exposed, multi colored wires and what appeared to be half of an MRI machine in the middle of the small room. She cleared off a low chaise lounge and motioned for me to sit. She then went into an adjacent room and dragged out the X-ray machine. This is where my X-ray tech turned into Jerry Lewis and proceeded to repeatedly step on the machine's electrical cord which was dragging behind her, causing the machine to come to a dead stop and her to stumble backward almost falling over in her 3 inch heels. 

Once she managed to squeeze the X-ray machine between my couch and the half of an MRI machine and free her skirt which was wedged between the two pieces of equipment, she set about arranging my foot on the plate for the X-ray. now, why is it that X-ray techs always manhandle the body part that you are getting a picture taken of? You've got to know that the only reason I'm here is because this thing might be broken, which at the very least means significant discomfort and may possibly be rather painful. Knowing this, they always seem to need you to turn it in the exact manner that causes the most pain and when you can't perform this task to their satisfaction they graciously offer to assist you by cranking it around to the position they want.

After 2 pictures she tells me to lace up (at least, I think that's what she said. It was either than or, "Go to hell." The body language could have gone either way.) She enters my information into a computer that is balancing, I'm not kidding, on an 8 inch stack of papers. She puts my film into an envelope and says, "You must pay cash." All righty then.

I'm led further down the hall to another office where a woman gestures to another couch covered in stacks of papers and scrap metal and instructs me to "Sit." I'm sorry, where exactly should I"...aw heck, I pick up a stack of paper and put it in my lap. She writes something in a ledger book, looks at me through thick glasses and says, "20 Lari." Folks, this is about $15.

All jokes aside, once I aggressively pushed my way in to this facility I was seen immediately and got a pair of X-rays for the cost of lunch at Applebee's. As long as you don't leave home without your sense of humor and you don't have any major medical melt down, you really can't complain.