socks and sandals

Regardless of whether or not karma is to blame, Northern Kazakhstan just doesn’t agree with some peoples’ joints. Back in November, Mike fell on the ice and broke a bit of his knee. Along is limping walk home, he fell twice more on the ice. He’s from Arizona. He missed our Thanksgiving celebration and I wrote a song about it. A bit later, I was playing basketball and jammed my thumb pretty bad, putting any guitar playing on hold for a couple weeks. As that thumb worked on the healing process, Forrest tackled me one day when we went sledding, unintentionally jamming my other one. Mike made a full recovery, only to sprain his ankle playing basketball at the university. Peace Corps sent an ankle brace and he limped around for again for a couple weeks. The night after he sprained his ankle, I went over to his house to deliver some of my ibuprofen and got to have a nice laugh at his crippled expense. As he hobbled down the stairs, I gave him a puzzled look. “For some reason right now you remind me of someone, but I can’t place it” I told him. “Oh, I know who,” I say laughing, “you look just like YOU did limping through December!”

This story is just starting. In the words of Justin Timberlake – what goes around comes around. This week I was playing basketball at Forrest’s college after a long winter break of inactivity, and thoroughly sprained my right ankle. The bad news is that it hurts pretty bad and I’m stuck to either the bed or the couch and the 15 feet of scenery between them for a few days. The good news is that it’s not broken. It is the same ankle that I broke in March of last year, so the PC doctor had me go get it x-rayed to make sure I didn’t do any serious damage. My host sister accompanied me to the hospital on the north side of town, where Dr. Nadia had called ahead to get me an appointment. This being my first (and hopefully last) time in a Kazakhstani hospital, I think it deserves some description.

From the outside, it looks about like a hospital in the states would in the 1960’s. There is an emergency wing with an ambulance drive-thru and an outpatient wing with a courtyard. We went in the outpatient wing and to the third floor, to meet the hospital’s deputy director who took me to the x-ray room back in the emergency wing. The outpatient wing was under renovation, and while the doctors walking up and down the halls were wearing typical white doctor coats, the repairmen and construction workers were wearing matching blue coats of the same style. I had an amusing image of a doctor tapping on a wall with a rubber reflex hammer, finding a stud with the aid of a stethoscope; meanwhile, in the next room, the construction worker is heading in to ligament reconstruction surgery with a hammer and tape measurer. As I sat in the x-ray anteroom and waited to meet the doctor, I saw some things worth noting. The room was pretty crowded, with all kinds of people waiting for x-rays. I saw a man with a leg that was being held together by some scary metal contraption. There were two different guys on full gurneys grimacing in pain. In my past ER trips, I’ve been spared the agaony of others by separate waiting rooms and large curtains. I didn’t have that luxury here. There were a good number of nurses mulling about, mostly waiting to take their assigned patients into the one x-ray room. They wore white doctors’ coats, blue hats, and sandals. The coats I understand – big pockets, easily washed separately. The hats too – keep hair out of face and prevent contact with patients. Good ideas. The socks and sandals kind of confused me. I spent the remainder of my time examining the footwear of the people in the room. The nurses wore sandals, the doctors wore shoes. I really don’t know why. Is for cleanliness and sanitation? Comfort and convenience? Fashion and social rank? Your guess is as good as mine. Operators are standing by to take your call. I finally met the doctor. He came in donning a grey beard and a tall paper hat like a chef’s. It was really more like a fancy paper placemat rolled up and pinned to his head. I managed not to laugh, but I bet it was the first time today he came into the room to a smiling patient. I didn’t have to pay anything as health care is universal here (one thing Kazakhstan has up on the US), got generic RICE advice (rest, ice, compress, elevate), and got back on the bus to go home.

For now I’m home, taking a few days off from work, writing unit tests for next week’s classes, cursing the day I teased Mike for being a klutz.