Whew.. Today has been one long Shakespearean comedy, to say the least. As usual I took a $60 train ride out to Aarhus for my six-month doctor’s visit to check to see if the tumors in my left arm or lungs ever make a reappearance. It’s been four, almost five years – they haven’t shown hide nor hair of themselves, so I hardly sweat it.
Normally on such a visit I take a signed paper from the specialist out in Aahus back to my local hospital, and they reimburse my travelling costs. It’s one of the small benefits that socialized medicine gives. And before you go ‘eeew’, socialisim (you americans) think it over.. I’d be in debt for life in the US for the operations that saved me from a messy end here.
Well.. still, the control visits are no picnic. See.. I travelled out there one day too early…
Yes, I was at the x-ray area for the normal see-through portraits of myself, and the secretary calmly announced ‘You know, it’s tomorrow you’re supposed to be out here…’ Oh yes, oh yes.. A few minutes later when she walked by after carrying papers to a doctor, I said in English to her ‘Gee, I’m just sitting here having one of those oh-Sh1#! moments’ – she laughed, and agreed. I was able to get the x-rays done early, at least, but the secretary downstairs at the oncology department couldn’t help me. They only see control-visit (follow up) patients on thursdays, and the doctor I am going to see tommorrow is on leave. They’re always on leave, don’t ask me why…
And those little signed papers for travelling costs? No… you only get one if you actually /see/ the doctor.
So my bus trip back to the train station was a quietly mortified one. sixty bucks, down the bin, on a month where our budget is already strained.
At least Aahus is beautiful this time of year. I took a picture with my mobile while waiting for the bus… Needless to say, I was trying to find all sorts of ways to avoid having to pay that exorbitant train price again. I tried to call one of my sisters-in-law who lives a few minutes outside the city, but predictably at three in the afternoon, she was at work. What can one do?
Another crazy little thing at the bus station – Clogged nose? – It’s an ad for cold medicine. It’s meant to stop the runny nose symptoms of a cold, but the side effects read ‘sting in nose and throat, dry and irritated mucous membranes, sneezing, burning, nasal discharge’. … I’ll take the cold, thank you! Still, it’s an amusing picture for an advertisement.
I took the bus back to the station and made my way blearily back on the train. We started pulling away from the station when I had a hivvup of terror – I’d forgotten to get my clip card stamped.
A clip card is a ‘multi-use’ ticket over here – you buy it for more than one trip between two stations, and use a little machine to stamp it before you get on the train. Being caught on the train without a ticket or a stamped clip card means you pay $110 in a fine, and on top of that, the cost of the trip you take… So that would mean, if the train attendant wasn’t feeling generous when he came by to check the new passengers, I’d be paying a $140 rather than just loosing the sixty I just wasted by going out to the doctor’s too early.
Understand me, the fifteen minutes between Aarhus and the next station was a nervous, somewhat tearful affair. I did pass that mural on the side of a house on the way out of the city again though.. A great, big purple and green cartoony elephant, like something out of Dr. Seuss, with the multicolored words across it ‘Aarhus is an old, tired elephant’. Hehe.. I’d wanted to get a snapshot of it since first rolling in with the train today.
In my rather dull, shocked distress, I took out my clip-card and stared at it – and tore off the little piece of paper that the stamping machine ‘clips’ off when it stamps the date on it. Searched for a pencil or a pen in my backpack too for a way to write the date.. but no use, I didn’t have anything to write with. I was hoping that at the next station I could get the card clipped with the date – but that came to no avails either.
We were slowing down to stop in the next station when the sound of the automatic doors between train carriages warned me that the conductor was coming to check the tickets. I whimpered a little prayer and dried my eyes as best I could – yes, I’m of the christian sort – adn then waited for the conductor.
When he came through, I was closest to the door, so of course he came to me first – asked for my ticket, and I showed him the unstamped clipcard and tried to explain myself. He was rather quiet, and forgiving, I suppose, for a red-eyed woman. It must have been very embarrassing, getting a semi-hug and a teary thanks.
The rest of my day has been pretty quiet, though at least hubby has been sweet in trying to cheer me up. It’s namely him who pays these little mistakes out of pocket, because I live off of his income. We share the small pension as best we can – and while we’re not rich, in another year I can apply for citizenship here and get a small income of my own due to the handicap the operation in 2003 created.
I know the majority of the population under the big blue sky don’t set value on the idea of a personal and caring God, but I do. In my ride home I just had a slightly tuneful set of words in my head ‘I still love you, and I always will’.