Calling out SOS Médecins

Well, it was bound to happen soon enough – on Thursday night I had to test out the French emergency medical system during a rather nasty attack of my Crohn’s.

I’ve been having these attacks of extreme pain and vomiting since I was about 19 and they are not much less alarming after twenty-odd years. It is my body’s violent response to a blockage in my small bowel where food is stuck in a narrowing caused by inflammation.

Some women with Crohn’s have compared the pain to childbirth. I can’t possibly comment – but it is very painful. The huge waves of pain build up to me throwing up 3-4 times in a row followed by a brief pause and then the whole process starts again until there is nothing left in my bowel – and I don’t just mean my stomach.

On Thursday this went on for about 2 hours, but sometimes it has gone on much longer. Often in the past I have ended up admitted to hospital.

Over the past few years I have discovered ways of either stopping these attacks or making them less intense. When I feel an attack coming on I’ve used painkillers like tramadol and morphine together with relaxation and hypno-therapy techniques.

Sometimes these work, sometimes they don’t – and on Thursday they didn’t.

I knew we would need to call a doctor out and maybe go to hospital. This was really frightening – I had no idea what would happen. I’ve had bad experiences in the UK and, although all my contact with the French health system has been good so far, I was fearing the worst.

My partner phoned the local hospital around 8pm and, as I was unable to make my way to the hospital to see a doctor, they suggested calling out a doctor from the SOS Médecins service.

The wait was probably about the same as in the UK – about 90 minutes – but I would say that the doctor who came probably knew more about Crohn’s and about how the local health system works than a visiting doctor in the UK.

I received a thorough examination and we discussed my medical history and my current treatment. We decided that I would have a course of steroids and I would make an appointment to see my gastroenterologist within the following two weeks.

In the meantime I was to rest, keep myself hydrated and slowly and carefully start eating. This is the sort of treatment and advice that I would need to see a gastroenterologist for in the UK – perhaps a week after an attack.

So this was another positive experience of the French healthcare system, although one it would have been nice to have avoided.

Accueils des Villes Françaises

Finally my French has got to the level where I can spend time socialising with French people and start to understand more about the French way of life.

I have to say that the levels of concentration needed to follow conversation over a few hours is rather exhausting, but it is like a door has been opened to a whole new world.

My spoken French has improved a bit, but I am still a long way from being to express myself – which remains frustrating.

Although I have met some really interesting people through going to watch football, the main way we have met people is through an organisation called Accueils des Villes Françaises.

AVF is a network of local groups that help welcome people when they move to new towns in France and help integrate them into local life. The organisation is non-political, non-religious and run by volunteers.

Although we are not the only arrivals from overseas, most of the people we have met through AVF are French. It has been great to meet people around activities – such as day-trips, cooking groups and over coffee – and be able to ask for tips about living in France and get answers to some of the questions that have been bugging us for ages.

Mainly, though, it is a very good opportunity for me to practice listening to and speaking French with people who have chosen to be interested in ‘new arrivals’ and are generally very patient with my poor grasp of their language.

Earlier this week we went out to see a film with a small group of others from AVF. We saw Faubourg 36 which is the hit French film of the autumn and it was the first French language film I have watched without any form of subtitles.

Thanks to it being an excellent film, I was able to understand the story and what the director was saying, despite struggling to make an exact translation of all the dialogue.

I am a big fan of cinema and French cinema in particular. So, for the first time I watched the full screen of a foreign-language film, rather than mainly focussing on the subtitles. In many ways, this is probably the most exciting aspect I have discovered of my improving French.

Le Foot

One thing I was keen to do – health permitting – was to watch the local football team. When I was younger and lived in London I went along to every Arsenal home game and the occasional away game too.

Top-flight football in England has been out of my price range for at least 15 years and my health problems haven’t made it easy for me to travel to London. So I’ve had to survive on a trip or two to Highbury every season or so.

Living in Caen is great for football. Tickets start at around €11 a match and it is easy to get a bus to and from the stadium. In fact the stadium is an easy walk, if I feel like it.

The team itself plays fast attacking football with a bit of an English flavour – the coach, Frank Dumas, is a great admirer of English football and played briefly for Newcastle.

The home games are lively on the pitch, with far more goals than the average French first division game delivers. Their home form is less impressive – I went to one local derby and their performance was appalling, as usual.

The terraces are lively too. Each football club has at least one supporters group who make banners and flags and organise the chanting – creating a far better atmosphere in the ground than at most English matches.

It has been quite easy to get to know people at the football. I got in contact with the supporters group and they were surprised and intrigued that an English football fan wanted to come and support SM Caen.

I have been welcomed and introduced to people and through an appalling mixture of bad English and even worse French, we communicate. I’ve found out more about France, French life and Norman customs than I would have done any other way.

Away from the football I have found that people don’t want to speak bad English to me and don’t particularly want to hear my bad French. This makes communication short and shallow.

However, with football fans we have something in common – football – and a need to talk about it and so my linguistic failings are forgiven, at least partially. Each time I am reminded to work hard on speaking better.