About 3 a.m. on July 3, Diane started feeling bad. Her abdomen hurt, she threw up several times, she couldn't urinate, and nothing we did made her feel better. At about 6:30 I asked the hotel manager where the nearest emergency room was. She told me: Hopital Landye in Mont-de-Marsan. Oh, and the French word for emergency room is urgénces.
I drove to the hospital (you can go really fast on French country roads at dawn on a Sunday), and explained via broken French, gestures, and international scientific jargon what was the matter. They gave Diane some opiates, which made her stop moaning in pain, she had a CT scan, and then we waited for a urologist to come have a look at her.
A urologist, because the CT scan identified the problem: a kidney stone (calcule) lodged in the ureter between the kidney and the bladder. Hence the excruciating pain, which caused all the other problems. (The urgences nurses had suspected that from the start; given the amount of foie gras the folk of Gascony eat, I guess those nurses see more kidney and gall stones than broken arms.)
They decided to keep her overnight for observation, and if the stone didn't pass they'd go fishing for it via a catheter. I decided to head back to Cazaubon for a shower and to pick up some things for Diane — now that she wasn't in agony, she was getting a little bored.
The drive back took a bit longer than expected, and not because I wasn't speeding on empty roads. I got lost, and the detailed Michelin maps I bought in Bordeaux were safely back in our hotel room. So I had to navigate by dead reckoning — which in practice meant driving into each village hoping to see a sign pointing to a place I'd heard of. (American highway signs focus on the route number: State Highway 116, next right, and so forth. French signs are all about the places: this way to Aire-sur-Adour, and never mind what the road number is. So in the center of every town there's a roundabout with signs to all the neighboring towns.)
Consequently it took about two hours and most of a tank of gas for me to find my way back to Cazaubon. In theory, I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon driving through beautiful Gascon countryside, but I barely noticed any of it and was sick with worry the whole time. At the hotel I got cleaned up, packed an overnight bag for Diane, and drove back — paying a bit more attention to the route so I could avoid detours, and making sure I had the map.
Diane was much better when I found her in her room. Even without opiates, the pain had diminished considerably (we suspect the stone broke up and came out in little bits). They were giving her Paracetemol (=acetominophin, i.e. Tylenol) for the pain, but since that doesn't play nicely with her glucose monitor device, she asked for Ibuprofen instead. It was amusing to discover that in France, at least, Ibuprofen is regarded as Serious Stuff. You need a prescription for it, and the nurses gave her grave warnings about overdoses.
Turns out hospital food is better in France — big surprise, right? She had a veal patty and some nice bread. The vegetables were still overdone, because apparently every hospital in the world has to overcook vegetables. Feeling a bit worn-down myself, I went back to the hotel (getting it right this time) for the night, and had a sandwich and some wine before sleeping soundly.
Monday Diane felt better, and had gone without anything stronger than Ibuprofen for 18 hours. We spent the day sitting in her room, reading and chatting. The urologist decided to let her go, so by late afternoon she was discharged. (We did have to explain to the hospital office staff that the reason they couldn't get hold of anyone at our insurance company was that it was July 4 and all the offices in America were closed.) To fill her prescriptions we stopped at a Carrefour hypermarché (think Wal-Mart but with all sorts of little satellite businesses included, like a bank, an optical center, a real-estate office, and of course a pharmacy).
As consolation for losing two days of our trip, we had a second lovely dinner at our hotel, dining on the terrace as a rainstorm passed a little too near. Wisely or not, we shared the Whole Potted Foie Gras appetizer, and wound up leaving about a quarter of it, which our waiter promised to put aside for breakfast.
Next Time: Caves!
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