Physio Language Woes

Last updated on January 25, 2019

So imagine this scenario. You live in Prague, a beautiful city. Many people speak English and you work in an English-speaking environment. You only speak enough of the local language to be polite. That causes lots of interesting situations.

Regular Physio Sessions

I’ve been going to physio for two weeks now as arranged for me by my health insurance company. The physio office is part of a huge complex about 35 minutes from home by metro with one transfer.

At my first visit, after the doctor examined me, a receptionist made 11 appointments for me over the course of 3 weeks. There are generally two sessions on the same day: a 15 minutes hydrotheraphy session and a 30 minutes physiotherapy session with a 15 minutes wait in between them.

For the hydropherapy session, I immerse my arms in warm water up to my biceps. It is supposed to relax my muscles. Then at the physio session, the physiotherapist massages and stretches my shoulder and has me do a few exercises. By the end of each session, my mobility is improved but it reduces again in between sessions.

Navigating Physio

I’ve been making all sorts of mistakes at my appointments. The first time, I knocked on the Vodeléčba door for my hydrotherapy session10 minutes before my appointment. With my ability to translate text depending on the context, I figured out that the lady who came to the door told me that I was early and should sit and wait for my appointment. She also said something about me needing indoor shoes or covers for my outdoor shoes. Since I hadn’t brought indoor shoes with me, I had to figure out where to go to buy the boty that she referred to. I asked another lady who pointed me to a vending machine. Since I had no change to feed the machine, I figured that I would just take off my shoes and wear socks for the appointment.

After my hydrotherapy appointment, I went to door number two to wait for my physio appointment (LTV na neurofyziologickém). It was 13:00 and there was a lady waiting, whose appointment was supposed to be at 13:00. After she berated me for not speaking Czech, she went on to ask me where I am from and to tell me all about the time she spent living in Canada. She also felt the need to share that she did not enjoy living in Montreal because it was too cold. Then I was called by a therapist who took me to a different room than where I was waiting for my appointment. By then, we had 15 minutes left for the appointment.

Physio Session 2

At my next appointment, I was again waiting for the physiotherapist. At 10 minutes after my scheduled appointment time, I started to wonder if therapists were chronically late in that office or if I was in the wrong place. I wandered down the hall, and sure enough, there is another room #2. I knocked on the door and the therapist welcomed me in. Again, we had 15 minutes for the appointment. SMH. I needed to get a full appointment in!

Physio Session 3

For my next appointment, I was 20 minutes early and waiting outside what I hoped was the correct room #2! At 5 minutes before my scheduled appointment, someone came out of the room and I was able to look in and see my therapist! He didn’t ask me in so I kept waiting. At 8:30 a.m., he still hadn’t come to the door so I knocked and he let me it. Finally an appointment for the whole 30 minutes, well at least 24 minutes anyway since we ended 6 minutes early!

Slow, Slow Progress

Each of my physiotherapists (private and insurance-arranged) has given me one exercise to do at home. One of them asked me to do neck stretches, and the other to do resistant band dead bugs. I’ve added in some other stretches and mobility exercises from the web. I only have one physio session scheduled this week, so I’m going to add in a visit to an acupuncturist, and maybe a private physio session as well. I’d love to find a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and try a session or two to try to speed up recovery but I think I need a doctor’s prescription to access one.