Einen guten Rutsch

Happy New Year! Or as the Germans would say it “einen guten Rutsch!”

The phrase meaning “a good slide” took on new meaning when after a foolhardy attempt to achieve the perennial “do more exercise” New Year’s Resolution, I went for a run and injured my foot navigating the muddy terrain. From the outset it was evident that I was heading for a fall both figuratively and literally.

With Philippe, the athletic Übermensch, pressing ahead, I trotted behind on the first jog of the year, enjoying not so much the changing scenery but more a generous sense of self-satisfaction. Jogging! A few days into the new year! What a noble and dedicated being I was. This was going to be my year - I was achieving my goals and pretty soon, I too would be in the ranks of the flourishing elite.

Cut to a few hours later…

Something was off. The runner’s high had long since faded, I was back at home and ready to eat my weight in carbohydrates, but my right foot was not right. I took off my trainer and put my foot on the floor. The pain was excruciating. All of a sudden a movement I had done with unconscious ease since I was 13 months old was unbearable and very much at the front of my thoughts. What a crazy thing it now seemed that one’s whole weight should be borne by those two funny-looking appendages, the feet. I was suddenly feeling every pound of flesh (and shortbread) that consisted my post-Christmas frame being transmitted through the damaged structures of my right foot.

I began to limp.

“Philippe,” I said, possibly with a touch of melodrama. “I think I need to see a doctor.”

I was at a loss as to what to do. In the U.K. I would have been in my element, rocking up to the nearest Minor Injuries Unit with a potted history and even a provisional diagnosis (it had to be a stress fracture right? Over-confident, unfit asian does too much exercise too soon? If it’s not a heart attack (wrong age range) it has to be a stress fracture. If this were a multiple choice question on a medical exam that would definitely be the correct response). But I was not in the U.K. and I had no idea where to go when seeking medical care in an out-of-hours, non-emergency situation.

I asked Philippe but being an Übermensch, he had never had to seek medical care for any injuries. In the end we ended up asking the next most informed source. First we googled “what to do when you hurt your foot in Germany?” and then when the messaging boards suggested an emergency walk-in clinic we googled clinics in the area. Which is how I ended up waiting with a cross-section of Munich’s population in the walk-in emergency clinic on the first Saturday of the new year. To my right a sniffly baby snuffled and to my left a bruised granny stared into the middle distance. It was a scene familiar from my days in the NHS but this time I was part of the morose mass in the waiting room. The only difference being that this waiting room was beautifully lit and kitted out in sparkling white tile. Oh, and everything was in German.

The only thing I truly understood was my name, which was mangled by flustered pronunciation and a heavy Bavarian accent. Even for a language that is compound noun friendly, my name has a lot of syllables in it and the nurse stumbled over the letters in the same way teachers, examiners and bureaucrats have been doing since time immemorial.

As I attempted to tell my story in broken German, not knowing the word for “4th metatarsal” or “unable to weight bear,” I felt my confidence slip. If only this were the U.K I would know exactly what to do. But here I was (forgive the pun, with the pain it’s the only pleasure I get) wrong-footed. Spotting my origins, the Orthopaedic surgeon attempted to explain his diagnosis in equally broken English and what followed was an impasse of understanding as he now substituted words for “4th metatarsal” and “unable to weight bear.” Supposedly I had a tear in the tendon and needed an x-ray.

The doubt about the veracity of the diagnosis and management comes from the fact that the nurse, who subsequently bandaged up my foot, bustled me out with a few painkillers and a pat on the back. No x-ray. I had definitely lost something in translation and it was worrying. Confused and dejected I limped back home, feeling not only that I had not handled my first German medical interaction all that well, but that I had potentially missed important advice as to how to get better.

It is a humbling thing to not only be on the other side of the doctor-patient relationship but to be in such a relationship in a country different to your own. I think now of the numerous patients I have seen for whom English was not their first language, patients who looked wide-eyed from their hospital beds as family members translated far more grievous diagnoses than a duff foot. How bewildering and worrying it must be to not understand any of the words spoken, especially when they pertain to your body and your well-being.

Despite the annoyance and the pain, I am glad for this new year misstep (sorry, I’ll stop the puns soon). It seems only right to start the new year not with complacency but with compassion. I may have been stopped in my tracks (last one, I promise) in achieving my exercise goal but maybe it was worth it for a glimpse through the waiting room looking glass.