F Train to Paris

In which a Jewish family from Brooklyn moves to Paris, France for two years of work, school, and adventures.

 

So often these days I'm wistfully aware that I'm doing something for the last, or almost the last time before we leave Paris. But certain just-one-more-time experiences I really could have done without. Like taking a child to the emergency room at Necker (more about that later). Or waiting for the depanneur--the applicance repairman. Yes, once again the washing machine has broken down. And if the repairman can't fix it today (assuming he shows up), I'll get to visit the local laundromat again--another experience I could have happily skipped.

I won't leave you hanging about that emergency room visit. As my father would say before beginning to tell a story like this, "Don't worry, everyone is all right. But...."  Last weekend R. (age 13) complained that his leg hurt. We ignored it for the moment, as we had tickets (all of us except E., plus a group of our friends)  for "Julius Caesar," in English, at the Theatre de Chaillot, starring Simon Russell Beale and Ralph Fiennes. (Yes, we went on Shabbat, but we bought the tickets in advance and walked home.)  On Saturday morning I looked at his leg, and just above his knee it was extremely swollen. When it hadn't improved by Sunday, I took him to the emergency room. After several hours of waiting, x-rays, and blood tests, a surgeon saw him and felt, based on the fact that R. has had a number of swollen joints over the past two years, that it could be  serious rheumatological disease. He wanted to admit him and do a procedure in the morning to drain the swelling and investigate. This procedure, it turned out, was actually surgery, under general anesthesia. To make a long story short, they kept R. in the hospital for four days and eventually determined that he does not have  serious disease, but a condition, which he will outgrow, called reactive arthritis, in which his immune system overreacts to an infection by swelling a joint. (In fact, he had strep throat a week before.) Virtually all of this took place in French, by the way. Necker Hospital is the one place I've found in Paris where people don't automatically switch to English--or at teast slow down--when they detect my accent.

So R. is home, wearing a sort of half cast (open in the front, then wrapped in bandages like a mummy) to keep his knee from bending. He will leave for NY on Sunday as planned, along with his brother J. He's back in school to spend the last few days of the term with his friends, having missed all of his final exams. And his parents may recover one day from the shock of hearing that their child might have a serious, chronic disease.

The repairman arrived, by the way, and it looked at first  like the washer problem, too, might not be serious. But, in fact, he needs to order a part, which may be ready by the end of the week, or perhaps not until next week. So I'm off to the laundromat once again, and I'll finish this post later on.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 09:54 | link | comments |