When I went to see the doc a few weeks ago and got an xray, nothing looked broken. So the GP doc referred me to a sports medicine doc for further investigation. "He can order an MRI, I can't" the GP doc said. I asked who he recommended and he said, "I've heard good things about Dr. Castricum." Ok then. I called and got an appointment for 2 weeks in the future. Of course, that turned out to be the day they finally decided to deliver my furniture. However, I could still make the appointment.
The night before, on a whim, I looked up the sports medicine doc. Turns out he's the doc for the Australian national track and field team. He's the doc that goes to the OLYMPICS. Are you kidding? And he did his masters-by-research thesis on exercise induced asthma
Of course the day of the appointment, my shipped goods arrived. So I diddled around at home putting stuff away. Then I decided I'd better take the ped-egg - the item in my shipment I'd been most looking forward to getting - to my callused feet. My feet were so bad that the pedicurist and the spa professional (both part of Jean's visit) had given me strategies to soften my feet up. Since I was going to the doc for my foot, odds are there'd be one more person in line to comment about their sorry state. So I took 5 minutes to get after those calluses with the egg. And then was 5 minutes late for my appointment. The sacrifices made for beauty.... well, maybe for less ugly, in this case.
The sports medicine clinic is in the part of downtown least accessible by public transport. I arrived all hot and sweaty with a sore foot because I'd basically been speedwalking for the last 30 minutes. (Did I mention my bike arrived with NO pedals? I was so looking forward to biking to that appointment.) I called huffing and puffing to say I'd be late and the lovely woman that answered the phone said, "No worries, I tell Dr. Castricum." Not, "I'll tell his nurse." This seemed strange.
I arrived, filled out my new patient paperwork, and then a male voice said, "Amy, come through please." Yep, the doc himself came out to get me. Stranger yet.
Dr. Castricum is about my age. He was wearing a gray polo shirt, untucked, faded blue jeans and blue Asics tennies - the skinny sort of fashionable kind of both jeans and tennies. His hair kind of stands on end. He took me back to his office, checked out my foot and told me I needed an MRI. He then proceeded to call the MRI clinic, fill in all the relevant info on the computer while he was on hold with them, schedule me an appointment with them for the next day, print out the referral form I needed, and then schedule my appointment to come back and see him the day after.
I made it all the way until the end of all those steps before I said, "OK, that would NEVER happen in the US - you, the doctor, would not make an MRI appointment for me."
"I know. And it wouldn't cost you $60 for the MRI, either." (FYI, it cost me $500 for the MRI)
In the spirit of the thing I continued, "OK, and not only that, but you're the doc for the Olympic team and I just got in to see you."
"Well, that's just one day a week that I work with them. I see people the rest of the time. You know I met the guy who works with the US Olympic team... (a bit of conversation here where we sorted out what state the guy was from, we settled on Portland, OR)... did you know they don't even pay him? He does it for free. All the money the US spends on the Olympics and they don't even pay a team doctor."
I didn't know what to say to that. And by the way, what do nurses do here in Oz? Are there any?
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Random Bits, 15 Feb 2013
Bit 1: I ordered lunch the other day at the cafe in the next building over, where the guy who makes the best ever milk foam works. (He is not in charge of the food, just coffee and tea beverages.) There was a hot food option in the display case with chicken and veggies in a white sauce that looked like it came with rice. I wasn't sure what it was so I asked the lady behind the counter. She wasn't really sure what it was. She pointed to 'Chicken Stroganf' written on the glass of the case. Yes, it did come with rice. Turns out it is Chicken Stroganoff - cream sauce, onions, mushrooms, and...... diced pickles. The pickles are not a positive addition, but the rest was pretty good. I didn't even notice the pickles until I reheated the leftovers today. Reheated pickles, mmmmm.
Bit 2: While standing in the kitchen reheating my Chicken-Pickle Stroganf, one of our staff members walked in and I said, "Well, hi there."
There was a long pause.
"What did you say?"
"Hi there?"
"I thought you said, 'Water buffalo.' Where are you from again?"
Upon review in my mind of how I say "Well hi there," I could see how he got to "water buffalo."
I'm not sure what that means.
Bit 2: While standing in the kitchen reheating my Chicken-Pickle Stroganf, one of our staff members walked in and I said, "Well, hi there."
There was a long pause.
"What did you say?"
"Hi there?"
"I thought you said, 'Water buffalo.' Where are you from again?"
Upon review in my mind of how I say "Well hi there," I could see how he got to "water buffalo."
I'm not sure what that means.
Monday, 4 February 2013
Boxing Day 2012 - Part 2
The real plan for Boxing Day, before getting side tracked by shoepocalypse, was to hit the NGV- National Gallery of Victoria. The NGV has quite a lovely collection of art. Jean particularly enjoyed the mustaches, the large wooden chairs (Amy, stand by those so I can take a picture!), and the fact that one whole gallery was devoted to the apocalypse.
My favorites were the green dragon bowls
We both liked the amazing carving made out of rhinoceros horn and the small gallery with a tribute to Japanese fashion which was a bit Michael Jackson meets Elvis.
On the way back, we thought we'd get a horse drawn carriage, but alas, they all had passengers. So we grabbed the tram, grabbed shoes from my office, grabbed another tram, and had leftover Christmas lasagne for dinner. Yum.
Friday, 1 February 2013
Boxing Day, 26 Dec 2012 - Part 1
Jean and I had a great time while she was here. Well, I guess I should say I had a great time while Jean was here. So much fun that there wasn't much blogging. So I'll try to catch you up on the good bits over the next month or so.
Turns out in Australia, Boxing Day (Dec 26) is like Black Friday. Shopping madness! Sale! Sale! Sale! Jean and I had intended to avoid it entirely. However... I had tried on a pair of sandals at a department store earlier in the week, but hadn't purchased them because I thought I had to be able to get them cheaper online. Turns out, no. Big footed girls should just buy the shoes when they find them in Oz. So Jean and I headed for downtown Melbourne on the biggest shopping day of the year for surgical strike shopping.
After fighting our way through the crowds on the street, we entered David Jones, which is a HUGE department store. So huge, in fact, that men and women have completely separate, 7 level stores across the street from each other in downtown Melbourne. Jean and I took the escalator up to the third floor where the women's shoes live. The sight that greeted us was a whole set of the squashy benches where people sit to try on shoes, completely covered with male significant others waiting for their dear ones to get done shoe shopping. They looked about as patient as a group of similar males would look in the US. I was surprised by how many there were... Maybe the ladies had to wait at the sporting goods store later? Or they'd already done that bit?
Anyway, just beyond them was a horde of women milling about, and single shoes covering every square inch of available space. I found a single of the pair I tried on before, not in my size, but I hopped in the queue hoping they'd have my size in back. Jean found a pair too and joined me in the line. Then left me because she saw another shoe she liked. Then I left her because I saw another shoe I liked... then we held the spot in line for a lady who liked one of the shoes we found and went to see if they had it in her size. This happened a few times. Being half-Wuerffels (my mom's side of the family), we made small talk with everyone in line. It was almost fun.
The lady directly in front of us waited 45 minutes only to discover they didn't have the style she was holding in her size. They did have mine in two sizes, and the ones Jean wanted. They let us step off to the side to try them on, which took a bit of fiddling around since basically it was just a little place where they bumped out the aisle markers. (All the dudes were taking up the benches, anyway.) At least when we were done they just took our money instead of making us wait in line again. In the end, 4 pairs of shoes for $250, including a pair of clarks and a pair of eccos. Not bad, except for fighting the crowds with a giant bag of shoes in the aftermath!
We dropped the giant bag off at my office, and then headed back through downtown to the National Gallery Victoria. As you can tell from the sidewalks, this wasn't the heart of the shopping district. Thank goodness! We walked rather than taking the tram, so we went past one building of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT - the other big university in town) and the randomly wooden side of the Melbourne Central Railway Station. And thanks to Jean, found the Melbourne equivalent of Chipotle: Guzman Y Gomez. Tasty burritos!
AND the weather was perfect (although not Christmas-y feeling): sunny, low of 56, high of 72, light breeze, 50% humidity, 12 hours of daylight.
Turns out in Australia, Boxing Day (Dec 26) is like Black Friday. Shopping madness! Sale! Sale! Sale! Jean and I had intended to avoid it entirely. However... I had tried on a pair of sandals at a department store earlier in the week, but hadn't purchased them because I thought I had to be able to get them cheaper online. Turns out, no. Big footed girls should just buy the shoes when they find them in Oz. So Jean and I headed for downtown Melbourne on the biggest shopping day of the year for surgical strike shopping.
After fighting our way through the crowds on the street, we entered David Jones, which is a HUGE department store. So huge, in fact, that men and women have completely separate, 7 level stores across the street from each other in downtown Melbourne. Jean and I took the escalator up to the third floor where the women's shoes live. The sight that greeted us was a whole set of the squashy benches where people sit to try on shoes, completely covered with male significant others waiting for their dear ones to get done shoe shopping. They looked about as patient as a group of similar males would look in the US. I was surprised by how many there were... Maybe the ladies had to wait at the sporting goods store later? Or they'd already done that bit?
Anyway, just beyond them was a horde of women milling about, and single shoes covering every square inch of available space. I found a single of the pair I tried on before, not in my size, but I hopped in the queue hoping they'd have my size in back. Jean found a pair too and joined me in the line. Then left me because she saw another shoe she liked. Then I left her because I saw another shoe I liked... then we held the spot in line for a lady who liked one of the shoes we found and went to see if they had it in her size. This happened a few times. Being half-Wuerffels (my mom's side of the family), we made small talk with everyone in line. It was almost fun.
The lady directly in front of us waited 45 minutes only to discover they didn't have the style she was holding in her size. They did have mine in two sizes, and the ones Jean wanted. They let us step off to the side to try them on, which took a bit of fiddling around since basically it was just a little place where they bumped out the aisle markers. (All the dudes were taking up the benches, anyway.) At least when we were done they just took our money instead of making us wait in line again. In the end, 4 pairs of shoes for $250, including a pair of clarks and a pair of eccos. Not bad, except for fighting the crowds with a giant bag of shoes in the aftermath!
We dropped the giant bag off at my office, and then headed back through downtown to the National Gallery Victoria. As you can tell from the sidewalks, this wasn't the heart of the shopping district. Thank goodness! We walked rather than taking the tram, so we went past one building of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT - the other big university in town) and the randomly wooden side of the Melbourne Central Railway Station. And thanks to Jean, found the Melbourne equivalent of Chipotle: Guzman Y Gomez. Tasty burritos!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)