Dan's medical saga

So JoJo isn't the only one who's been having fun with the Brussels medical system (although she's definitely the one having the most fun). (Caveat emptor: There may be some duplication here of earlier posts.) When we took JoJo to the ER on Friday night (3 nights ago), I asked if I could see someone for me, since I'd been stoicly-- or not-- suffering from coughing and stuffy nose for about 4 weeks, and I had had enough. The gentlemen at the reception desk said that 4 weeks hardly qualified as an emergency, which I thought lacked a certain, uh, humanity or something. Then last night (Sunday) we had a house call, and the doctor wasn't in a position to address my concerns there and then, but she invited me to come to her walk-in clinic the next day.

Which brings us to today. Before going to the walk-in clinic, I called our health insurer to get pre-approval or what have you, and I kind of got an institutional run-around. I seem to be in that sweet spot, where to get pre-approval takes longer than I want to wait (probably days, but I don't even want to wait 1 more day), because I consider this urgent at this point, but whether medical professionals and insurers share my sense of urgency is quite another story. So I decided to suck it up, at least for now, and go to walk-in clinic and not expect to be reimbursed. Mercifully it wasn't very expensive for my visit (which included a blood test): 30€ (about $40), plus another 27€ (about $35) for 2 prescription drugs. It's hard for me to imagine the same treatment would be anywhere near as inexpensive in the States.

Now I don't want people to get the impression that JoJo or I are in danger of dying or anything, we're not trying to be that dramatic. Our medical trials have been no more than annoying-- but on the other hand, the level of annoyance is very high. This is certainly not the way we wanted to start our big adventure in Belgium!