Strep Throat

Poor Lilian probably has strep throat. ?

She came home from school today and was completely unable to talk. I was really dreading figuring out how to get her checked out, but it ended up being a fairly smooth process.

The first thing I did was open up the DoctoLib app and look for a doctor who had appointments available today. DoctoLib is the app we use to schedule all of our doctor’s appointments. It has quite a few search filters (location, hours, languages, etc). I’ll be honest, a lot of the practitioners who say that they speak English… don’t really. We almost always end up with me translating. I needed a place that was open late, so I searched by hours and location.

I found a place that wasn’t too far from here, closer to the outskirts of the city. We took the tram out.

Kristian and Lilian are still waiting on their paperwork for Ameli, the national health insurance (I won’t even be eligible until after I get my Carte de Sejour). Once that goes through, everything will be covered. And, Kristian will have a Carte Vitale that he can swipe everywhere to identify himself. In the meantime, we’re paying for everything out of pocket (and keeping all of the receipts to hopefully get reimbursed later). And, we get to do everything the old-school way and give people physical paperwork. I get a lot of funny looks when I have to go to the pharmacie.

Getting enrolled in Ameli has been a process all on its own. The first time Kristian mailed everything in, we waited. And waited. And waited. Another mom at Lilian’s school told us that we’d been waiting too long, so Kristian found a number for assistance in English and gave them a call (based on the voice prompts, it’s a holdover from pre-Brexit when Brits needed assistance). It’s a good thing he called, because they never got his application! They asked him to come in person, so he made an appointment, brought everything in… and then the woman we spoke with mailed it all again for us.

(I go to as many of his appointments as I can in order to translate).

Then we got a notice saying that we needed a copy of Kristian’s Finnish naturalization certificate. Cue another appointment to go into the office and give them more paperwork. They wanted naturalization papers, birth certificates, and copies of Kristian and Lilian’s US passports. Everything looked great! Except the naturalization paperwork is in Finnish. They’ll accept documents in English, but Finnish is a bridge too far.

So, they handed all of our paperwork back and told us to find an official Finnish/French translator. There are three of them in all of France, but luckily one of them was available. We paid her to translate the document, so now we can send everything in. Hopefully, the third time’s a charm and Kristian will get a Carte de Vitale after that.

Welcome to France, right? We knew what we were signing up for.

I’m told that all of my complaining about bureaucracy and paperwork means that I’m acclimatizing nicely.

So, anyways, after the doctor got over his confusion over our lack of Carte Vitale, he took a quick look at Lilian’s throat and decided that she probably has strep throat. He gave us a (paper) prescription and told Lilian that she should really practice her French. I had to pay him completely out of pocket.

It cost me a whopping 30 euros.

I sent Lilian home and took the prescription to the pharmacie closest to our apartment. We did the whole “wait, why don’t you have a carte vitale?” rigamarole. My french is pretty decent, but we had to switch to english in order for me to explain that we applied for one and we’re waiting on it. I didn’t just leave it at home! There’s nothing to look up on the computer. I swear! I will pay you with my credit card, it’s ok. The woman I talked to also had to find someone else to ask for help, because my situation flummoxed her so much.

Once we established that I would be paying out of pocket, she grabbed all of meds that the doctor prescribed. They didn’t have the cough syrup in stock, but they were able to make a recommendation for a spray that can work instead.

Four different medications (multiple boxes of some of them, event) and it cost me a whopping 25 euros.

Lilian is bummed out that she can’t go to school tomorrow, because it’s their Carnivale celebration. I’m hopeful that’s a good sign that she’s not feeling too awful. I haven’t had strep throat since it turned into Scarlet Fever when I was a kid (long story). Everyone please cross your fingers that the rest of us stay healthy!