Playing the Game: Another Hospital Appointment

Going to a hospital consultation, in a country where I only speak a little of the language, is not dissimilar to my time spent as a child playing adventure games such as Monkey Island, on my old Amiga computer. Yet instead of following the misfortunes of the hapless Guybrush Threepwood as he struggles to become the most infamous pirate in the Caribbean, the focus is on me, an English girl; half-deaf and with limited Spanish, trying to fathom her way around a Spanish hospital system. Yeah, it doesn’t sound as interesting, and it’s not, but it presents a puzzle in itself nonetheless. As in such adventure games, there are questions, feelings of apprehension, and puzzles that must be solved before progressing with the story and moving forward in the game.

My game begins with the intense feeling of nervousness whilst sitting in the waiting room. I sit asking myself various questions: Will the specialist speak English? Will they listen to my Spanish and take me seriously, even though I’m obviously not fluent? Will they slow their speech down so I can understand some of the words? Will they be OK with writing down the names of any necessary tests, so that I can go home and Google them? Will I even hear them when they call my name!  My main hope is that they will be patient with me.

The next part of the adventure is the actual consultation. If I am not fortunate enough to meet a specialist who speaks English, I feel the difficulty level increase immediately, and uneasiness starts to claw at me. Trying to make sense of what a specialist is saying, involves me grasping at the words of which I know the meaning of, and putting them together as quickly as I can. Sometimes I find myself listening and trying to concentrate so hard, that I actually end up not concentrating at all. Sometimes I succeed in listening carefully and I manage to understand some words. However, in the time it takes me to make sense of the words, I end up missing the rest of what has been said. On occasions, I am handed papers and may be told to take them to another department or area of the hospital, or to use them to inform another member of staff as to the nature of a follow-up appointment. The next level follows my journey as I walk around the hospital following signs, and then coming to the realization that I have no idea where I’m going, or why I’m even walking around clutching my paperwork in the first place!

Four weeks after my appointment with the new ENT specialist, I went to the hospital for my referral with the maxillofacial doctor. The upper jaw is referred to as the ‘maxilla’, and the type of doctor I would be seeing, specializes in treating problems related to the hard and soft tissues of the face, mouth, and jaws. I went to the hospital by myself. As usual, my game began with me sitting and waiting anxiously in the waiting room. A mixture of questions were eagerly pushing themselves forward; fighting to be at the forefront of my mind. I scanned the faces in the room. There were people here of all ages. I had found myself sat next to an old man, who kept coughing loudly into a crumpled handkerchief. Whilst battling to ignore the interrogation of persistent questions in my mind, I couldn’t help but glance at a few individuals around me; studying their faces, and wondering why they were here. I’d focus for a while on someone’s features; looking at the shape of their jaw, and assessing the symmetry of their face, until I felt they had sensed my stare, and were about to look back at me. I’d then quickly move my eyes away from my subject.

My name was called, and I walked into a small room. Immediately the specialist started speaking in Spanish. Difficulty level up! I started to answer her questions, and I apologized that my Spanish wasn’t good. She reassured me by saying it was OK. The doctor had a young face, dark hair and radiated compassion. She listened to me as I explained how I had suddenly lost my hearing. She was writing everything down. Then she examined my jaw. She asked me to open my mouth as wide as possible and she felt the joint. She then asked me to close it. I repeated this a few times and she asked if I had any pain in the joints. She placed a tiny piece of card with measurements on, next to my front teeth, and told me my teeth were 3mm to the left, off centre. Then she told me that I was going to do a test. If the results of the test were negative, the treatment would be physiotherapy and wearing a night-time mouthguard. But, if the test showed that I have…then…Oh dear, my skills in following the Spanish conversation were dwindling. I had missed some important information. I told her I didn’t quite understand. She told me not to worry, and the main thing was that first I would need to do the test. I asked her to write down the name of the test and condition she was referring to, so I would be able to research it later at home. Then I was handed some papers and told to go to the receptionist.

Next, I went around the corner to the receptionist. As she was speaking to me there was also another woman in the small room, speaking very loudly on the phone. I couldn’t hear my next instructions.  I apologized to the receptionist and said that I didn’t understand and that I couldn’t hear very well. She kindly accompanied me out of the door, handed me some more papers, and directed me to take them to a window down the passage. I thanked her.

Next level. I then walked forwards as far as I could go – which is the direction I was given, and wandered around for a bit. Then it hit me, the moment of realization that I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was supposed to go, or why! I spoke to a nurse who was talking to another nurse in the corridor. She directed me and told me I needed to get a ticket and then go to a window. I walked again in the direction she told me but didn’t find a ticket machine. Hmm puzzling…I spoke to a man who was sitting at the Information desk at the entrance, and he printed me a ticket. Oh, there wasn’t a ticket machine – this man was in charge of tickets! Then he pointed to the first window and told me I was next. Next for what, I wasn’t sure! I handed the woman behind the glass screen my papers, and she was very patient as she spoke to me. I had to put my ear into the small opening of the glass, so I could hear some of what she was saying. I managed to make appointments for the test and also a follow-up appointment. Then I went back to the receptionist in the maxillofacial area and showed her my papers. She checked them. She seemed happy with my accomplishments and we said our goodbyes.

When I returned home I Googled the words the doctor had written down for me. The ‘gammagrafía’ test was a ‘bone scintigraphy‘.  I would be having an injection of a dye of radioactive material. This dye would then travel around my body and emit radiation. Then a camera would take pictures of how much of the dye accumulated in my jawbones. It was a test to rule out a condition called ‘condylar hyperplasia‘ which is a rare bone disease that affects the jaw bone and causes asymmetry in the jaw amongst other things.

Anyway…Game over, for this day at least!