November 18, 2009, 
Tagged I have been feeling sick for quite some time now. However, the way I was raised taught me not to go to the doctor except if it’s mandatory: there are people in a whole lot more need than I am. However, sometime around the last Saturday evening, I have started developing a fever. And when I say fever, I mean FEVER! No matter what I had tried, the best outcome I was getting was by taking paracetamol or ibuprofen but those would have effect for 1 or 2 hours at most and then the fever would be back. I couldn’t take the pill again since it would’ve been too fast for my body to handle and I just had to resist.
Sometime around 12 AM, I realized that something was wrong: I have never had this kind of fever. I do get sick pretty often so anything out of the pattern rings a huge bell in my brain. Therefore, I have decided to call the emergency doctor in Aarhus. For those of you who don’t know about him, he is practically the first step before calling 112 and he should be called if you don’t have an immediate emergency like a robbery, fire or accident.
Therefore, I called him. After being held with a very crappy music for some minutes he answers me. I tell him what the problem is and what he told me shocked me: “It is most likely the Influenza type A. You know, H1N1, Swine Flu”. I got scared. I told him that I was practically burning and that my eyes were about to be on fire and he told me that I should just continue taking one Paracetamol every 6 hours, drink a lot of teas and just stay inside. Wow, I don’t think I would have ever considered that! That’s like a genius treatment that I have never ever tried before! After getting out of the shock of hearing the treatment suggestion, I asked him about this swine flu. I did know what the symptoms of this flu are but I never knew you can evaluate it by phone. He told me (and pay attention here) that his brother has had the same symptoms, followed this treatment and he is better now. I thought myself “What a jerk!”, told him to have a good night and went to bed myself.
Meanwhile, the fever persisted for a little while, then disappeared. However, all the other symptoms started bursting all over my body: coughing, continuous nausea, stuffed nose and sore throat. I knew that taking the paracetamol or the ibuprofen will not take the flu away but rather hide the symptoms. Eventually, I decided to go to my assigned doctor but in order to go to him, you need to make an appointment.
I wanted to go there on Monday but I couldn’t contact them on Monday morning. Tuesday came and I was not able to contact them and finally, today, after being held with the crappy music for around 15 minutes, I got an answer.
Again, I started telling what the problem is and again, I was in a shock: I was told that it’s most likely the swine flu(!!) and that they will not schedule a meeting with the doctor for me because there is no point in doing that. They just said that I should stay at home, in bed, drink teas and take paracetamol. Should I make any comment? I guess not!
So here I am, staying at home, without knowing whether or whether not I have the swine flu. Usually, the doctors have to be trusted but it’s just hard to trust a diagnostic made through the phone. I could have a normal flu or just a very unusual sore throat and chances are that none of these are contagious. However, due to the lovely doctors around here, I am not able to go to any place where there are more people: what if I pass them the swine flu which I don’t know if I have?
It could all be dealt with so easily: accept my meeting with the doctor, do me a fast test so I know what I am dealing with and make me feel comfortable: Don’t tell me I have the swine flu if you don’t know for sure. I do have an internet access and can easily see how many cases of death there have been. What if I would get scared and do something foolish?
But then again, technology with the doctors around here is so good that they can evaluate the Influenza Type A through the phone. I should trust them! I wonder though, what if I had listed the AIDS symptoms? Would they have told me by phone that I have the AIDS? That surely wouldn’t surprise me.
The doctors here are awful… on the other hand, their politics is not to give people too much medicine… Petronela experienced the same advice for her too long lasting sore throat: stay home, drink lemon tea, you’ll be fine:)
Sidryane, I am not frustrated by not receiving medicine and being given that advice. I am frustrated because of the “fear” they put into everyone who receives the swine flu news and the fact that they can’t make a proper test.
Hope Petronela is ok!
Well, seems that Chris has it. I know it’s annoying but (I’ll hate myself for saying it) quite reasonable. The thing is that now there are more than enough people (specially younger ones) that have swine flu. Media blew it up so badly they now it seems like you have something deadly. It’s just a flu with a different name and created in a lab.
Normally with a very simple care human’s organism should kill the virus in 3-4 days (depends on the immunity and all the rest). That should be the the worst days… Medicine in general are designed only to hide the symptoms, not to fight the disease.
And with all of that I still totally agree that there is something very wrong with Danish idea of health care. And not only…
Greetings, my fellow Swine,
A couple of months ago my auntie was diagnosed with swine flu in the UK, she has two children around the age of puberty and my grandmother is resident at an old peoples home. Needless to say it scared the shit out of me and I told her to stay the hell away from everyone (except my uncle, he’s a dick, but that’s another story).
Anyway, the doctors just told her to stay in bed and, yes, take paracetamol and drink lemon tea. After the pandemic scares, the tamiflu shortages and people dying here and there (sudden respiratory failure being a risk for asthma sufferers – we have asthma in my family) it does seem a lame and irrational response from our medical caretakers. The bastards.
So my auntie got better and a billion vials of stockpiled tamiflu gathered dust as the pharmacutical industry laughed like cruel jackals tearing the unborn baby from a poor mothers womb.
We’d be better off going to a pig farmer for treatment of our swine flu than a GP. It took me almost two years of complaining to mine about a pain in my knee caused by work before he sent me for an MRI (my doctor – not the pig farmer) and guess what – massive bad shit in the meniscus. Cheers, Dr Dane. So I had an operation, that didn’t work. So I had another operation, and during all this, for recovery and building muscular support, I was told to use an exercise bike. So I did.
Pain didn’t leave, went to a physiotherapist, I told her the story and she screwed her face up. I shouldn’t be using an exercise bike – that’s bad for the knee… The hospital nearly didn’t give me crutches after the op.
So the moral of this story is that these fuckers are hopelessly incompetent. When we trust one person to take care of every possible ailment, pain and virus they can’t help but fuck up. That’s why God created specialists. Like in our shitty education, I’ll be coming out knowing a little bit about a lot of things and heading out to tell people these things I know as if they were gospel. Now if I fuck up with the code of a website a bunch of people won’t form a coven and burn themselves out of fear of catching aids from squirrels but when Dr Dane fondles my sweaty balls and sticks that nasty plastic thing up my arse and tells me to cough, well, I’m gonna take his word for it.
Sorry for rambling, I’m a bit poorly you see. Nice blog by the way – you’re like a Romanian Nabakov (Yes, because of Lolita but not because it’s about paedophilia, because he wrote it in English – his second language.)
Get well soon.
Oh man, Vi did tell me you are also feeling sick but I never thought you’re feeling sick that you would actually post a comment on my blog! Poor little you…
I love the way you told the story but keep in mind though that me, you, Per and other people were lucky, unlike this poor baby: http://lbstadler.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/baby-dies-11-danish-doctors-make-grave-mistake/
Thanks for the kind words by the way. Don’t think there’s any other better compliment than the one coming from a writer
We read the article. Scary. Very scary. And very sad.
And in the comments I found that “This also includes the sanitation issues in not only hospitals but also in doctor’s offices and clinics (which from what I understand is terrible and is said that if you have surgery in a Danish hospital you have a 25 percent chance (or one in ten according to this article) of getting an infection http://www.ugeskriftet.dk/portal/page/portal/LAEGERDK/UGESKRIFT_FOR_LAE” –> you don’t have to look far, Chris had two knee operations… because after the first one he got the infection… I mean come on…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqImkDgDwHU
@Chris haha, looks familiar
@Vi that’s shocking, considering the level of the Danish society and the way they praise their social care system. just shocking.