49 Blog Post Friday, October 25, 2024 “94 Euro”
The wind is a force to be reckoned with on Naxos. The sound is wonderful, especially at night when we can hear the waves hitting the shores of the island and also hear the wind in the tops of the palm trees, tossing the fronds around wildly so they clatter together. But being out in it is another thing altogether. But I’ll get back to that after the big story of the day—yes, I went to the local hospital.
There’s no urgent care here on Naxos. Everyone just goes straight to the ER. The hospital itself is just a bit bigger than the airport, if you saw that picture, and it was a throwback to an earlier time. It is also a neighborhood hospital, which means people know each other by name when they come in. An American is a whole different thing, though. Very few people spoke English. No one was fluent, but we managed.
To be seen cost me 20 euro, which I had to pay up front, and then, like every other ER, you wait. But some people didn’t. They just walked right into the ER, which had about 6 beds altogether. I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out what to do, as you’ll read.
I got in pretty quickly, was asked about symptoms, given a Covid test, and the first indication that I was in a less advanced hospital was when she took my temperature under my arm. I had to do it myself and put it under my shirt until she was ready to read it. No forehead thermometers here. The young medical person—no idea if she was a nurse or doctor, no intro, no name tag—spoke some English and indicated that I needed to get an EKG, blood work, a flu test and a chest xray. Yikes, right? And then she said I had to pay for everything ahead of time. Since we have travel insurance, I wasn’t worried about being reimbursed, but I had no idea how much all this was going to cost. I’d already paid 20 euros, but this sounded much more expensive. I headed out to the check in area and found out that ALL those tests together cost 73 euro, or about $78. For everything. So the grand total for the whole visit was $100. One challenge was that Alistair was not able to be with me, and that created a little nervousness on my part just because of the language barrier. I felt like I needed someone else to listen to the doctor with me, but that wasn’t possible.
There were clear differences from our American system. I received good care, so this is not a complaint, but I had to bring my own blood work to the microbiology lab and wait for the results then go back to the ER with the results. (And if I told you how long it took the person to find a vein, you’d feel squeamish.) Nothing is computerized. I went back to the ER after the blood work and she told me I was also supposed to go get a chest xray. She seemed annoyed that I hadn’t gotten it already, but I was clueless, so I headed off to the radiology department. No one showed me the way, no one checked me in. I showed up at what I thought was the Xray Dept and this was the sign in Greek and English: “Don’t open the door! Ring the bell!” In other words it all happens in the one room—check in, xrays, undressing. There are no privacy curtains or gowns. You just stand around kinda naked in the room with whoever else is in there working.
One funny thing—my fairy hair was causing some kind of interference, so I had to put my hair up and out of the way. The tech was laughing as she came over to ask me what it was, then asked me to put it up. I had to wait outside for those results too, and they arrived on a CD-rom. Remember those? Also, the tech wrote all the patients she worked with by hand in a giant ledger book—once again, no computers.
When I went back to the ER with my CD, I stood in the doorway because I wasn’t sure what to do next. While I stood there, one woman’s family came to see her, so she stopped work to spend time with them. I also noticed that one of the ER doors to the outside was wide open, and it seemed like all the ER staff was gathering out there to eat and to chat. No one spoke to me, came over to me or helped me. I had no idea what to do. Eventually my waiting paid off, and my medical person came in from outside and sat with me. “Nothing is wrong,” she said. “You must have a viral infection so stop taking the antibiotics.” This was relieving to me, but it doesn’t help with my symptoms. She also prescribed a medical inhaler that is usually used for asthma patients. When I had the scrip filled, it came to 20 euro. So for about $125 dollars, I had a full battery of tests, a diagnosis and medicine. And it only took about 3 hours from start to finish. Pretty impressive.
Now, this means my shortness of breath and my coughing all continue to bother me, but I will trust in the medical care I received. Afterward, I figured I could continue to do regular activities, so Alistair and I set out for a hike up into the Naxos mountains, not a long one, but it was pretty steep in places and I had to rest more than usual. And the wind, as I mentioned earlier, was its own challenge as we hiked. It simply never stopped and it created big changes in temperature between the shady and sunny areas, so it was hard to wear the right clothing. It also gave me “Medusa Hair” the entire day, not just during my hike. In other words, my hair was literally crazy looking after being walloped by the wind. When I got home yesterday and saw my crazy, wild hair, I asked Alistair how he could let me be in public looking like this. I mean, it was sticking straight out in places, and women with gray hair don’t need it to be crazy looking as well as gray. He said he ‘didn’t notice.’ Nice try.
The end goal of our hike today was a tiny, abandoned Orthodox Church called Panagia Vothokiliotissa chapel nestled into a crook just behind the summit we scaled, and it opened up an entire vista of the center of the island and the next ridge of mountains on the opposite side from the city of Chora/Naxos, where we were staying. But it was reeeaallllyyyy up there, in fact it was at the same level as all the microwave towers that looked so far away from the shoreline. I coughed and complained for the entire last kilometer. For me the hike up can be hard, but the view and, in this case, the tiny church, were worth it because they gave us a different picture of the island outside the boundaries of the small, busy city we are staying in. The city is great for lots of things—restaurants, shops, hospitals 😊, but if you really want to know more about a place where you are visiting, you need to travel farther. This is something we love to do.
What I learned on our short hike is that we passed at least 5 Orthodox churches on the way and most of them were very small. The Chapel in the mountains was the smallest, but even that Chapel showed signs that people had been there recently (see photos). The institution and presence of the Orthodox church seems to be very important, not the size of the buildings. Some of the churches I saw could only hold 10 – 20 people max.
I don’t know what it means to be religious as an Orthodox Christian. In other words, I’m not sure if the practice is more cultural than spiritual, and I know I’m not able to judge that, nor do I want to. But I wonder if the Orthodox Church is drawing in people and connecting with communities in ways the Episcopal Church is not able to do, and if so, what can we learn from them?
In fact, when I was in the ER being checked out, Alistair told me an older Orthodox priest was sitting in the waiting room with his wife, waiting to be picked up to go home, and Alistair saw him talking to people who were coming and going and interacting as if he knew most of the people there. That’s a great gift in a small community.
Tomorrow is our last full day here and we head to Santorini on Sunday. That will prevent us from attending church this week, which troubles me, but Alistair pointed out that a week from this coming Sunday he will be back in Duanesburg, serving his church once again. He’s already researching his sermon. We might have our own church service in our hotel room once we get to Santorini.
But for now, I may still feel sick and I may even be sick, but I’m glad I was able to have someone look at me in order to realize that a viral infection will simply heal on its own schedule. In the meantime, we are planning another wind-tossed hike for the morning. No matter how much I cough and complain, we want to make the most of our time here. Plus the additional baklava consumption requires a little more exercise on our part. 😊
Blessings and grace,
ML+
