A few days after the New Year, we were hit with a freezing cold front on the French Riviera. It having been twelve years since I lived in Finland and last had to deal with ice on a day-to-day basis, I had essentially forgotten about the slippery phenomenon.

That is, until my foot slid on the sidewalk and I thought to myself, “these soles are really wearing out,” put down my second boot, thinking it would stabilize me, then, as both slipped out from under me, I promptly found myself seated on my now-freezing rear end. “What??” I put my hand on the sidewalk. What should have been gummy, rough asphalt was instead icy smooth. I ran my hand over it inquisitively, and finally the memory returned: “oh, ice! What?! Here?!”

I picked myself up and paid more attention while I finished walking from the bus station to our offices. Fifteen minutes after settling in at my desk, my lower back began to ache. I soon realized I wouldn’t make it through the day without painkillers, and so called up a doctor. I was able to get an appointment an hour later. By then I was nearly unable to walk from the pain, much less stay seated for very long. The doctor prescribed x-rays of my lower back, an anti-inflammatory (ketoprofen) and painkiller (paracetamol), and sent me home for two days of rest. Since the accident had been on my way to work, our office assistant filled out an accident de travail form, which is the first time I’d ever seen one. It’s roughly equivalent to workers’ compensation in the US.

It turns out that having an accident de travail makes everything even simpler than health care already is in France. I don’t have to pay for anything that is prescribed as a result of my accident. Not even the usually-mandatory base fees that, otherwise, would later be reimbursed. As a result, the five x-rays of my back (only two are shown there) were free, and my regular physician prescribed 15 physical therapy sessions, which are also entirely free. My spine, sacrum and coccyx are fine; the doctor who did my x-rays even pointed out that I have “particularly well-spaced vertebrae”. Way to go, vertebrae. The muscles, however, are a different story; it’s only today that I’ve been able to go without using much pain medication.

I was able to find a great physical therapist with offices five minutes from where I work. Few things are better than a deep, full-back massage right after a long day.

This entry was posted on Monday 18 January 2010 at 20:46 and is filed under Journal, La France. Tags for this entry: , care, France, health, healthcare. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.