Health Care - My New European Perspective

I made my first visit to an Austrian hospital yesterday. (I phoned my parents prior to writing this so as not to unduly alarm them!) I am tempted to preface this story with some claim about being hesitant to seek a doctor's advice, thus enhancing my toughness and bravery, but that would be a lie. For a healthy, active 23-year-old, I have amazingly frequent doctor's visits. I love health insurance, and I use mine, a lot, for all sorts of completely non-emergency situations.

It's been over a week since my bicycle accident, (I'm still certain it's retaliatory karma for laughing at those crazy Austrian hippies.) and I still am having trouble moving my elbow, plus its bruises are fairly intense, much like violet on the color wheel. So, no one had to twist my arm (ha ha ha) to get me to go to the hospital to get a Dr.'s perspective.

It took forever. I waited for three and a half hours. The equipment was really outdated, and not understanding the language only compounded my logistical troubles. However, my treatment (an X-Ray and a bandage) was completely free! I love this place, and socialized medicine is okay by me. The verdict is that nothing is sprained or broken, and my Dr.'s advice verbatim is as follows:

"Running? You've been running! Every day? Every day! That is silly. No, no, no... No running, no biking, no swimming, no sport for you! What you need to do is watch television, eat popcorn, and candy for eight days. You won't get fat."

I'm not going to get into the offensiveness of the "not getting fat" comment, but I doubt he would have said that to a man. However, I am really not excited about 8 days off of my normal routine, and this bandage is really goofy looking. I need a better story than simply falling off my bicycle. Maybe I can claim to have sustained my injuries in the line of duty as a human rights defender. (Yeah right, my current risk level lies somewhere between breaking a nail on my keyboard and getting a papercut...)