Real Life in Belgium

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I’ve been limping around to various degrees for a couple years now so I made another doctor’s appointment to see what the deal was with my foot.

“Yeah, it must be about three years now since I got this splinter in there,” I told my doctor. “I remember standing by my front door in Hawaii looking at the ball of my foot to see what was poking it, but I never could get the thorn or glass out or whatever.”

She treated it, which hurt worse at first and then felt better, but the issue came back much worse a few months later. At that point it hurt to walk barefoot at all and I limped around a lot after days where I walked more than six miles or so. I went back to the doc.

She broke the news to me kindly—it’s not a splinter. Something is wrong with your foot, you old fogey. She sent me to a specialist.

This post is not about my foot. This post is about the absurd and sweat-inducing experiences we have living overseas. In this case, that means Belgian medical care! Maybe this is all exactly what you’d find in the US if you weren’t at a military facility. I have no idea actually. But it was different for me.

First of all, I ride my bike over to the medical facility because this is Belgium and there will never be anywhere to park, but there will be very convenient bike parking. Next, I am the youngest person in the facility by multiple decades. What did I expect? I’m here for old person foot problems. Third, the receptionists are switching fluently between Dutch, French and English with each person who comes to the reception because this facility is right on the border of a French and a Dutch commune, and also close to the American and British schools. Fourth, every person I saw in the waiting room was white, thin, and as mentioned, quite a bit older than me. Brussels is very multicultural, but not this waiting room. It was like walking into the Hawaii Kai Costco when the retirees show up for Thanksgiving break only everyone was wearing flat shoes and puffer vests. Oh wait, so was I. Anyway this part is boring; the doctor looked at my foot for 90 seconds and wrote me a prescription to get an MRI.

So today I drive north of the city to the hospital where my MRI is scheduled. I arrived absurdly early because I hate being stressed for time when I don’t know where I’m going or where to park. Of course, being early means I find parking right away and there’s no line to check in. There are three different check in desks. The people here look different from the other facility: there’s more variety of nationality and race, but less variety in age. Everyone is 100 years old. I am seriously the youngest person in this zip code.

Remember, I am here for an MRI on my foot, so imagine my surprise when the woman who called me back tells me to take my bra off.

“You can keep on your…little pants… but upstairs nothing,” she said, handing me a hospital gown and gesturing to the regions of little pants and upstairs. “I don’t know how to say this—upstairs? You understand?”

“Yes,” I nodded, taking the hospital gown and trying not to giggle awkwardly. Ok, time to change fast. They always come back in when you’re in the middle of—

“Pants off too! No pants!” the lady yanks the door open while I’m half undressed. She waits while I wiggle out of my pants, then waits for me to go ahead of her down the hallway. I have regrets about wearing bright pink little pants today. She pulls out the hugest syringe I’ve ever seen attached to an injection needle.

“I did not understand what I would be doing here today,” I said nervously, trying not to look at the needle while also trying to see the tourniquet she’s wrapping around my elbow.

“Yes, often doctors don’t explain it very much,” she said. “The English is difficult. Make your hand tight.”

“Am I going to pass out?”

“It is just a little stick, you’ll see,” she said, injecting me with something or other. “See? You didn’t pass out.”

“I mean, will that make me unconscious?”

“Oh, no, you will stay awake,” she said. “This makes your blood…light up? so I can see where it hurts. It has no side effects, but if you don’t like it, you can drink an extra 1 liter of water.”

“That’s ok, I like to sparkle… on the inside….” I said, feeling like this was all rather rushed.

“Yes, on the inside,” she said, ushering me into the room with the thing.

I was only stress sweating a little from getting injected with an unknown substance to make me sparkle on the inside while half-naked with strangers. That might sound like a wild party but hey, just another Monday afternoon for me.

Foot here, lie down, hold still. I told her I would hold still and take a nap.

“Yes, time for a little nap. Here is an alarm for you, just in case,” she said, handing me a little squeezy thing. The growling of the machine reminded me of the grinding of the water heater I can hear from my bed. It was over in no time.

“You took a nap, no?”

“I think so, yeah? That was very relaxing,” I said. Compared to the first part anyway.

“Relaxing, sure. I wish all my patients were like you,” she said, undoing the tape holding the giant needle in my arm.

“That’d be weird though,” I said.

“Nothing weird, just taking out the needle,” she said. Then I was dismissed to go change and leave on my own. I was out 24 minutes after my scheduled appointment start.

With mostly chirpy vacation posts lately, someone could get the impression we skip along from trip to trip. We are definitely doing a lot of traveling lately; with a very finite amount of time left in Europe and no idea where we’re going next—literally no idea—we’ve tried to use any time available to see the places we moved to Europe to see!

But this glosses over the little oddities of living overseas. I feel like I did a better job of observing and enjoying those differences during our stint in Japan because everything was SO new and SO different for me. Here are some more examples. Our street is currently under construction. This is no kidding the third time the entire street has been jackhammered apart in 18 months. Can they not coordinate the electricity, the new fiber cables, and the water line work even a little? Every time there’s construction the house shakes for weeks and everything is covered in concrete dust. My German friend in French class commiserated. “Yes, these things about Belgium really annoy my husband. Sometimes I tell him to stop being so German about everything.” “I tell my husband the exact same thing,” I said, “and he’s not even German!”

Isaac had his annual cardiology appointment the week before my foot appointment at a different hospital. We had the same cardiologist we saw last year, who looks like he’s about 12.

“Right? How old does he look to you?” I asked Isaac. “I’d say he looks 20,” Isaac shrugged.

After the echo, which went well, praise God, I talked to Doogie about a study on risks of myocarditis in boys after receiving COVID vaccines.

“He has no added risk for side effects because of his condition,” the cardiologist said confidently. “So it’s up to you. There is debate about giving the vaccine to children under 12 because they are not at as high of a risk of complications as other age groups, so the vaccine is more to help prevent spread. It becomes an ethical issue, so it’s up to you to decide. There are much greater risks of COVID complications for people who are very old, or people our age, you know, than for children.” Here I got distracted—“…ARE you my age…?” I wondered. The last time I was mistaken for a child was definitely in my 20s. Anyway, I dropped Isaac off at school in time for lunch and cried the whole drive home. This happens every year. I think, “No sense in stressing over this appointment. Ok. Everything is fine!” Then as soon as it’s over this flood of tears comes rising up from somewhere and spills out everywhere.

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The kids love soccer—that’s been an unexpectedly super fun contribution to being quite busy since school started. October is always a little nuts with birthday season, fall break and Halloween, peppered with flu shots and cardiology appointments, and this year also complicated by after school sports—we started swimming too—most days. Whew. We’re doing our part to ignore the lessons we learned about enjoying downtime during COVID and overdo it just in case. Soccer is their favorite thing—the weather has been fantastic, it’s a great chance to walk some laps and chat with friends, and the kids love running around with their friends.

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After four months of not being able to use the main bathroom in our house, this issue was also resolved. Late last year I spotted bubbling in the ceiling paint and called the landlady, who had several people tromp through our house and tell me there was no mold in the walls. Shockingly, after six months of this, they ripped out the wall and, surprise, there was so much mold the entire wall down to and including studs had to be removed and replaced. In the center of our house. Work started while the kids and I were in Alaska and finished a month later—a full month of absolute chaos with people here at irregular times every day, buzz saws grinding, French technopop blaring, zero privacy and not having the main bathroom of the house in any usable condition. Plus all the furniture, tools and workmen’s personal items shoved haphazardly into my bedroom.

Our kind landlady speaks several languages and is Venezuelan. The crew was Polish and spoke French. Chris is studying French. One day in particular blew Chris’ mind a little as three of them—people from Poland, the US and Venezuela—had a conversation in French in Belgium. “This is a very international construction project,” he thought. Now the construction is finished and we can again shower without having to use the one in the closet-sized room squished between the laundry room and the garage. Why would anyone put a shower in front of the door from the garage to the house? This, like much of life these days, makes no logical sense.

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Even as temperatures plummet and COVID cases spike—again—I try to take moments to enjoy the beauty of fall in Belgium. The leaves start early and take their time changing—it is absolutely glorious. I love fall: messy, brilliant, past its prime, a little showy, but totally unselfconscious. Shrugging out of the year with careless abandon. Autumn doesn’t give a hoot.

I hate sending the kids to school in the dark, but I love riding my bike to French class at dawn. This week I glided down the bike path lined with chestnut trees (the first trees to lose their leaves on my route) and turned onto the bike lane for the final leg of my commute, and this time of year, my absolute favorite. The sun rises through the mist settled on the lake in Woluwe Park, golden leaves catch the sunlight as they rain down like flower petals and the trams passes me quietly. Last Thursday was pouring down rain so I took the tram instead of riding my bike, but I knew this day it would be glorio—the lane is blocked off. The path is completely ripped up. There are only a couple muddy tracks where people attempted to ride bikes and gave up.

Sigh. Well. That is Belgium for you.