Bilan de santé

About a month ago, I was poking around the French healthcare website to see if I could find a new dentist in our neighborhood.  (Our beloved dentist who did American-style dental cleanings up and disappeared into thin air about a year and a half ago.).  

I didn't end up finding a dentist nearby, but I did come across an article saying anyone who is insured in Ile de France has the right to have a free health check-up every five years.  Considering that I haven't had a check-up in probably 20 years, I figured now was as good as a time as any.  There was a short online form to fill out (here) and then a week later I received a convocation with a date/time at my closest center.

They had booked me in for 1:30pm, which initially seemed fine until I noticed I had to be à jeun* until that time for the blood draw.   Not eating anything and drinking only black coffee until after lunch did not seem to be the smartest idea, especially since I work out at noon, so I called back to see if I could reschedule. It took a while, and involved several emails and phone calls, but I finally got through and was able to set up another appointment for today.

Depending on your age, the check-up covers a meeting with a general practitioner, blood & urine sample analysis, dental exam, eye exam and electrocardiogram, and is supposed to last 2.5 hours.  If they find something urgently wrong, they will call you at 4:30pm the same day to inform you; otherwise you will receive your results 3-4 weeks later by mail.  (It's now 5pm here btw, so whew - no scary illnesses to report!)

So was it worth my time (and yours)?  I'd lean towards no.  The Dr's visit was short and extremely generic and the dental exam was also lightning speed and did not include a cleaning.  I was also disappointed they didn't do a frottis or a breast exam (though a mammogram might have be included if you are over 60).  It was kind of interesting to do the electrocardiogram though, but given all of the rest of your stuff can be prescribed by your  regular doctor for testing at your local laboratory, I don't think it's really worth 2.5 hours of  one's life.

The medical practitioners were all extremely friendly though, and even more so when it came out that I was American.  Though to be honest, given the population of people who were there (mainly homeless, I believe), they could have just been happy to have someone who was clean, sober and in generally good health.  

I did get scolded for not having seen a dentist recently though, so if anyone has a good, reasonably-priced dentist they can recommend in central Paris, please let me know! 

*They do give you a cookie and an applesauce after the blood draw, and at least at my health center, there was a coffee machine and a vending machine in the waiting room.

Metro News

I'm about half-way through my 3 crazy month travel spree:

• Week 1- near Cholet
• Week 2- Thailand
• Week 3- China
• Week 4- home (woohoo!)
• Week 5- near Cholet
• Week 6- Istanbul
• Week 7&8- Thailand
• Week 9&10- US
• Week 11- Return to France
• Week 12- near Cholet
• Week 13- nothing booked yet, but that's still a ways out...

It's starting to make me regret getting annual passes for the metro, the gym and the cinema...but oh well, too late now.  And I hate using the individual metro tickets anyways, I always end up with a million of them everywhere, and never know if they've been used or not, etc.

But I did actually take the metro yesterday and picked up one of the free newspapers, so I thought I'd share a few interesting articles.

First of all, the Regional Tourism Committee has started renting out these little wifi boxes to tourists in order to give them better mobile access during their vacation.  The box is about the size of a telephone, has a 6h battery span, and allows you to connect up to 10 devices to it.  There are about 100 available, and you can rent them at the information booths at CDG and Galeries Lafayette.  The cost is pretty reasonable too - 7,90€ per day. 

There was a second offer for tourists too - Appart'City is offering a special for the month of June that allows customers to name their price for a hotel room.  The promotion is valid all over France and can be booked online at www.appartcity.com.

And lastly, if you don't like speaking in French on the phone or can never get your doctor to pick up, there is a new website called www.RDVmedicaux.com.  The site has over 2600 general practitioners and specialists (including ophthalmologists) in over 500 cities through France, and basically lets you book a doctor's appointment as you would a train ticket. They will send you a confirmation via SMS, as well as a reminder SMS the day before your appointment.  I can see how something like this would be extremely practical, both in helping you find an available doctor near you and also during les vacances.  I know there have been times in the past where I've had to call as many as 10 doctors before finding one available during the month of August!

Lacta-what?

Often when I'm on the road, I'll end up watching France 2's Télématin program while getting ready in the morning.  It's sort of like the French version of the Today Show, but not as fun.  So the other day, I was listening to it in my hotel room while repacking my suitcase, and I heard something about "lactariums".  That caught my attention, so I turned the volume up, and it was a reporter encouraging mothers to continue donating their breast milk during the August vacation.  I was like "Wait a minute, what??".

The reporter went on to explain that there are 15 different departments in France where women can donate their breastmilk.  You can either keep it at home in your freezer in bottles provided by the Lactariums and someone will come by and pick it up once or twice a month, or you can freeze it and drop it off at an approved maternity ward.

Once the milk has been collected, it is tested for a variety of diseases and bacteria, and then it is mixed with other milk for quality control and then it all gets pasteurized.  The Lactariums in France collect enough milk to feed 50,000 premature babies per year.

That got me then thinking about whether or not this exists in the US, so I turned to my friend Wikipedia, and what do you know - "Human Milk Banks" also exist in North America.  There are twelve in the US and one in Canada, and they also aim to provide milk primarily to preemies. 

You learn something new every day, huh?

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, I thought I'd post a video that kbh sent me. Click and enjoy:

                       

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Gross
www.thedailyshow.com
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I've been watching the whole birth control debate play out in the US with much interest.  It's such an intriguing conundrum to me - women's rights will be infringed upon if her employer refuses to pay for birth control, yet the employer's right to religious freedom will be infringed upon if they are forced to pay for something they are wholly against. 

The debate came to a head this week when a law student names Sandra Fluke spoke before a congressional committee, talking about how birth control can cost up to $3000 over the course of law school. 

In return, everyone's favorite political commentator (not) Rush Limbaud had the following to say: "What does it say about the college coed ... who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex."

He went on to say that if that was the case and they were going to "pay" for her to have sex, she should at least post the videos online so that they could watch.  Republicans have yet to speak out against him.

WTF?

In what world is that kind of talking okay?  I just don't understand the direction the US is heading.  Last month we have a breast cancer charity cutting funding to Planned Parenthood because they provide abortions, and now this?  It's like we're moving away from a woman's right instead of toward them. I hate to think about what else will happen if the religious right gets elected in the fall.

And it's times like this where I am grateful to be living in France - a country that still respects a woman's right to choose her own health care plan, instead of having a committee of old men do it for her.