The Good, The Bad and the Partially Diabetic

A while ago, Paul Hipp, a friend from across the big pond wrote a satirical song about the world healthcare rankings and America's position therein (No. 37).

Check it out HERE

From this I learned that Britain is ranked #18 and FRANCE is ranked #1. Not sure that in this post-Bush era this still stands but I'm certainly getting a huge amount of attention from the healthcare professionals here.

THE PARTIALLY DIABETIC

There's a routine test over here where you go in starving, they take some blood, give you a glass of glucose-laden, radio-active poison then make you wait an hour on the hardest chairs outside of a monastery. Then they take more blood, make you wait ANOTHER hour, take yet MORE blood before releasing you into the autumnal morning; cold and nauseous, with a very sore arse.

On one of the tests, I'm .4 of a gram over what they expect so immediately I'm packed off to Diabetic School with the unhealthy and the clinically obese, where I'm given lectures on how to eat and exercise properly. The only thing that prevents me from chewing my own arm off is the fact that it is all in French. Big thanks to the Tall One for sitting through it with me and giving a convincing impression of someone who is at least half awake.

They prescribe me an apparatus for testing my blood, and I am yet to see a result that is even vaguely worrying. It's not like the British Justice system. I am diabetic until proven innocent.

THE BAD

The same SAGE FEMME (midwife) who packs me off to Diabtetic School for .4 of a gram also tuts and huffs about my baby being small. BAD lady. He's NOT small. He's fine.

THE GOOD

Madame Huffy-Tutty Pants books me in for more echograhie (scans) and gives me a prescription for a private midwife to visit me CHEZ MOI twice a week. This is amazing on so many levels.

i) Someone is paid to spend up to 2 hours per week with me obsessing about my baby.

ii) We listen to his heart for a full 30 minutes at a time. I even get a print-out.

iii) I don't have to travel to Limoges for the privilege.

iv) As my attestation for my Carte Vitale has come through, I don't have to pay a thing. €90 per visit. Woo hoo!

v) The Tall One found me a midwife who not only speaks a bit of English, but also trained in the UK and KNOWS THE NHS SYSTEM. Together we deduce that the reason Mme HTP thinks he is small is because they have my dates out by at least a week. The French count the start of your pregnancy from conception. The English from the first day of your last period. 2 weeks difference.

vi) This fabulous lady is also my personal admin terrier. It transpires that even though my attestation has come through, because I don't have a piece of paper confirming my pregnancy from CPAM I'm not officially pregnant. She is on the phone to them, sorting out their bureaucratic asses.

So there you have it. Whether I am diabetic or not, whether or not he is small (he's bloody not), the good far outweighs the bad. Hurrah for France. Number 1 healthcare system in the world.