jumping through hoops to get rehab

You never really learn how things really operate until you have to deal with them yourself.

All I want is some decent rehab programme, something to make sure I can walk again without a limp after ripping the body’s largest tendon and rendering my right leg useless for the time being.

My regular doctor was telling me enthusiastically last week about a clinic where I could get a full morning programme of daily physio once the 6-week no-touch rule is over and I can finally take off this dead-weight brace it’s been so fun to drag around.

But when I went Monday to the specialist surgeon to whom he’d referred me to have the stitches removed and we later talked about physio, all he was able to offer me was a referral for two half-hour sessions a week.  The absolute bare-bones minimum available.  In Germany’s two-class healthcare system, if you’re a private patient you get silver service, no questions asked.  If you’re on statutory cover – in German gesetzlich – well, take a number, eh?  Nothing new there.

So this morning I went back to my regular doctor and told him of the enormous gap between what he was talking about and what the specialist gave me.

“Hmmmm…. let me do some quick phoning around and I’ll call you back in later,” he said.

Twenty minutes later he tells me the deal: in order to get rehab, I have to go first apply for it through the bureau that deals with pension issues.   Pension?  That’s the rapidly dwindling sum I’ll get when I retire, isn’t it?  I thought this was medical.

“It is,” he explained, “but your healthcare provider is responsible for your time off work.  They pay for that.  Your rehab is paid for by the pension people.”

The things you learn.

So he gives me a referral for a rehab clinic, reminding that I’ll first have to call the Hamburg pension administration bureau, who will set the ball in motion.

Knowing that sounded just a little to easy for words, I ask for and receive a direct number to call, some tips on what to say, and a merry send-off home.

The number they gave me was not in service.

Digging the right number out of the Internet, I wait on hold for the usual 10 minutes before speaking with a woman who informs me that my pension is administered not in Hamburg, but by the federal office in Berlin.  When I ask for the number in Berlin, thinking this is probably a routine thing,  I get an answer as cold as this late winter and probably as much as I should have expected: you can go find it yourself.

So I dig out the number soon enough and call the Federal Pensions Office and jump through the usual number-choice hoops before speaking with a woman who guides me through pages and sub-pages to the right forms to download and fill out.

There are seven separate forms totalling 17 pages.   Many repeat the same questions in a different way.  Some don’t apply to me, but I have to check a box anyway.  One ominous one involved giving my bank account details to permit them to extract any fees I might have.  No mention of what these fees might be for, or how much they are.

I don’t know why it has to be this complicated, but I suspect they do it this way to turn off those people who are intimidated by officialdom.  There must be a percentage out there who give up before even trying.

After filling all the forms that pertain to me, I have to take the bundle to my doctor to fill out stuff that pertains to them, then take that bundle to my healthcare provider who will fill out more little boxes, then I get to go to the post office and send the bundle off to Berlin.

Right now I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes so long to get approval, I’ll have long since passed the point at which rehab will do any good.

I’m staying Canadian: an open letter to the mayor of Hamburg, Germany

Dear Mr. Scholz,

Thank you very much for your letter in which you invited me to become a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany.  The recent introduction of standardised electronic EU permanent residence cards, one of which I had the pleasure of picking up recently (see below) has no doubt made it simpler for you to streamline your database and target the Ausländer of Hamburg in your drive to promote the benefits of citizenship in this great land.

I have given the matter a great deal of consideration, but have decided for a number of reasons that the chances of my becoming a German citizen are – at this time and most likely even if the temperature of Hell hits zero – zero.

Responding to only some of the many advantages you list:

All the rights I currently enjoy including the right to pay taxes will continue as before.

Mr. Scholz, I don’t mind paying taxes.  I’m Canadian, after all, where wallets are sold with special pouches that flip open automatically for quicker tax payment at every turn of the road.  But if you’re trying to sell me citizenship on this basis, you should re-phrase it somehow.  How about: You will continue to enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling you get knowing your contributions to the great European Social Project and other black holes including the Elbe Philharmonic Centre, the new Berlin Airport and the bailout of Greece, will go on as before.

The German passport will allow me to enjoy visa-free travel to many countries.

Mr. Scholz, allow me to condense in a few lines how much of a pain in the kiester it was the last time my family crossed the Canada-US border by land on the way to Seattle.  I was flashing a Canadian passport, so no trouble there.  But because my wife was travelling on a German passport, we were singled out for special treatment and made to park our car off to the left in a huge lot and leave the keys on the dashboard.  I’m sure they had a good sniff though our undies as we shuffled off to a humungous building nearby to join the waiting queue of people in a similar situation.

Two hours and I forget how many US dollars in fees later, we were on our way again, but not before my wife and daughter nearly burst their bladders as they tried to find a toilet for those waiting their turn.  And to top it off – this is completely our fault – my wife forgot to get her passport stamped on the way out of the country, so there’s no telling what bureaucratic bullshit awaits our return to the US on holiday sometime this year.  An overnight stay in their specially designed hotel rooms, perhaps?

Ahah!  I now recall where the German passport has it all over the Canadian: when we were travelling to Turkey, the price of a visa for Canadian passport-holders was the highest in the world.  It’s more than double what anyone else pays.  That’s because Canada soaks the Turks for an equal amount for visas to Canada.  Fair is fair.  A German passport holder pays diddly-squat.

I won’t have to deal with the Foreign Residents’ Bureau anymore.

Because it is so very enticing, this point should be way up top.  But considering it is only once every five years that I have to get up in the middle of the night to stand around in front of a locked gate for a couple of hours to be handed at 6am a chit that allows me a couple hours later at 8am to get one of only 60 waiting-room numbers issued on any given day for the chance to hand over my new paperwork to one of your minions, well… I guess I can deal with it.  Besides, I love the smell of mothballs in the morning.  Smells like…

Mr. Scholz, I am unfortunately unable to continue this open letter because my upper limit of 700 words per blog post is fast approaching.  In a world where few read anything on the Internet beyond block letters superimposed over a cat pic photo, you have to keep it short and sweet.

Yours sincerely,

Ian OHamburg

PS. Damn the word count, when will Germans ever learn to spell my fz*cking name right?  I know nearly every automated computer system in the country explodes at the insertion of a capital letter in the midst of a name with no room for a space, but if you’re going to be communicating with Ausländer – some from countries with languages so bizarre the word for ball contains a glottal stop, four Ms and a silent Q – you really should try to update a bit.

A cross-border ski-doo trip to hospital

It took a good half-hour for the ski patrol to arrive by ski-doo after we first sent word we’d need them.   As we were waiting we heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter approaching, and I groaned – no, please, not a helicopter ride!

The patrollers hopped off the machine and got to work pumping up an inflatable brace after assessing my situation.  By tapping on the bottom of my foot and seeing I wasn’t writhing in agony, they were sure there was no bone breakage, but were very careful nevertheless in sliding me in, because every little movement of the leg hurt.

Many people had stopped while we were waiting to ask if they should send word, and we thanked them all kindly, but now that help had arrived, everyone just whizzed past.  Unfortunately, the patrollers still needed help to hoist me into the sled once they got me on the inflatable stretcher, but they couldn’t get anyone to stop.  So the little  red-haired girl got a grip on one end as the two of them took up the other, and in one lunge I was plunked down and then strapped in for the ride to the clinic.

This was all happening one sunny afternoon at 2,700 metres in Ischgl, Austria, but we were staying over the border in Samnaun, Switzerland.  Ischgl and Samnaun were two separate areas until an expansion joined them up in 1987, so now you can get a lift ticket that covers both.

The ride to the Ischgl clinic was a bit of fun, actually.  I now know what it feels like to have everyone stop, stare, and tell themselves: thank hell it’s not me.

At the clinic they had me walk around a bit, which I actually managed with the brace, but they told me I’d be in a hospital for a few days, offering to fly me by helicopter down the valley in Austria.

“Uhhhh… that might be a bit too much trouble,” I stammered out, not only unsure whether my insurance would cover a helicopter air ambulance at two bucks per blade rotation – low estimate! – but what about the red-haired girl?  How would she make her way back to where we were staying in Switzerland?  They might be joined at the mountaintop, but to reach Samnaun village from Ischgl village you first have to head down to the junction of two valleys and then go up the other.  It’s a long way, and it was late in the day.

“OK,” they said, “what we can do is tell the Samnaun patrol we have a victim to pass over to them.  You’ll both be taken by ski-doo up to the border and from there the Swiss will take you down to the clinic in Samnaun.”

This time I was the one in the rear passenger seat of the ski-doo and the red-haired girl riding shotgun as we revved our way back up to the pass to the Samnaun side.

A patroller was waiting on his ski-doo at the border, and before we knew it we were on our way down the other side to the top of the aerial tramway, where a man was waiting with a wheelchair.  The patroller parked the machine and helped us squeeze in with all our gear among the other passengers for the tram-ride down, where at the bottom an ambulance was waiting for the short ride to the clinic in Samnaun.  At every link in the chain there was someone waiting to take over.

In the Samnaun clinic they definitely diagnosed the ripped quadriceps tendon, and set me up for an ambulance ride down the valley a little less than an hour away in Scuol, Switzerland.

Cash or credit card, sir?  I do hope to get some of it back….

===========

If my first-ever serious ski injury had to happen somewhere, I was pretty lucky to land up in hospital in Scuol.   From the moment of injury to the operating table barely more than six hours had elapsed, a crucial point as I’ve since learned.  The earlier this injury is worked on, the better the chances of a full recovery.

I’m going to write the hospital staff a card today to thank them for everything they did.  Perhaps they figure they were just doing their jobs, but I was so impressed.  From the first wheel through the door to good-bye six days later, the care was excellent.  The doctors were clearly professional and at the same time approachable and friendly, I was given my choice of anaesthesia by the director of the hospital himself, the morphine as I emerged from the epidural was offered and gladly taken, the nurses were often asking how I was, what they could do for me, and somehow also knew when it was time to leave me to just rest.

And to help me get through my last full day, a good friend who’d read of my plight on Facebook and who was planning a trip to Nice from Munich via Switzerland offered to drop by for a visit.  He arrived on the morning of the best weather we’d had since the day of the injury, brilliant warm sunshine bearing down on the balcony.   We had a chat and got some sun, and when the physiotherapist came along to give me another introductory course in competitive stair-climbing with crutches, he bade farewell.

Marty, you are the greatest.

Death of google reader to usher in the new dark ages, experts say

Security and terrorism specialists in governments around the world have been bracing themselves for an unprecedented backlash of rage and fury in the wake of Internet search giant Google’s decision to phase out its popular – if unprofitable – feed reader service.  Used by tens of millions around the world as an archaic way of surfing the Internet without really trying, Google Reader will be pushed aside so the mega-firm can concentrate on more useful stuff like geeky heads-up display glasses.

“As of right now our security level is being raised to double-purple sparkly,” said Helmut Askew, US Undersecretary to the Overseer of Interior Externalities at the Pentagram.  A secret, never-before-used level of threat awareness to be invoked only in times of wartime and other unpleasant things, double-purple sparkly will first be felt by airline travellers.

“If you thought we were picky to the point of stupid about toothpaste, get ready,” lathered one official.

Security pros say this week’s Internet consumer outrage closely resembles the now-infamous 1985 Coca-Cola Co. Inc. decision to revise the formula for its popular soft drink soda refreshment beverage.  Coke’s replacement of its crappy, decades-old, overly sweet yet mystifyingly popular concoction with one slightly less crappy and less sweet outraged the addicted masses, who, urged on by the sugar cane lobby, managed to get Coca-cola to reverse its decision.

“Back then people didn’t go around shoving bombs in their shoe bottoms or strapping explosive devices around their midsections to wreak havoc on buses and planes,” explained L. Fin Gnome, security expert with Troll International.  ”All we had to worry about was the prospect of global mutual incineration based on a computer malfunction or other misunderstanding. Those were the golden years, for sure.”

In addition to additional encore performances of airport security theatre, Pentagram officials say citizens wherever they are in the world must be aware that individual governments will be poised to clamp down on any demonstration, sit-down protest, hunger strike, random public gathering or topless protests taking place against Google’s decision.

“OK, we’ll allow boobage demos to happen only as long as  it takes to ensure we’ve got enough pics to show on the private news channels,” he said.

Philosophy professor Schmöckjr Pââp, Ph.D. of the University of Wallamoongdong, Australia, says the particular nature of the unprecedented international security clampdown reflects today’s new social media landscape.

“Today, it’s the individual terrorist venting wherever and whenever he can,” he said.  ”Starbucks service too slow?  Tweet it.  Don’t like the weather?  Facebook status update.  Google Reader disappearing?  Blow up government and commercial buildings whilst your friends post the wreckage on Instagram. Even if you disapprove of their actions, once it’s on Facebook you have to hit Like to acknowledge your acknowledgement of the action.”

Statesmen and -women worldwide have reacted with shockage and appallation at the Pentagram’s elbow-jerk reaction to the Google Reader flappage.

“Bunga-Bunga, si, Doubla-purpla no!” said Silvia Berluscona, former helmsman of the Italian ship of state, now lying on its side after hitting rocks on the northwest coast and due to be towed sometime soon to a scrap metal yard.  ”We who control all of Italy’s media will denounce this action if we can make money off it, or support it if we can’t.  And vice-versa.”

Russian President Voldemort Putin, fresh from another image-promotion tour where he showed off his somewhat perfectly buffed gluteus maximii to a fawning Russian media, said the Sotchi Winter Olympics of 2014 had already been planned as the most heavily securified Games on record, so the new threat level brought on by Google’s decision won’t have that much of a direct effect.

“We are already prepared for floods, washouts and mudslides,” said Putin to snickers and elbow-nudges from the Quebec wing of those journalists let out of jail long enough to be on hand at the press conference.  ”Just look at Vancouver 2010!  We’ve got bigger trucks for bringing in more artificial snow if we have to.”

German reaction was straightforward and to the point.

“The Government of the Federal Government of Germany condemns in the strongest of terms the over-reaction of the American military, who should be taking world opinion into better consideration at this most critical of times,” said German Chancellor Angela Murkel.  ”Nichtsdestotrotz and nevertheless we are prepared to send a small contingent of our troops to any regions affected, supplying them with pop-guns and Ravensburg puzzles – some in 3D –  because they’ll need to fill in their time somehow.”

Former US President Bill Clitnon said if he were still in the Oval Office, he’d be getting a… good grip on the situation and, uh…. ensuring there would be no stain on his legacy.

“Ah call on President Obama to do the raght thang and just put a stop to all this,” said Clitnon.

-the editors of Letters Home wish to inform readers that due to the above line involving the esteemed former US President the author of this piece has been relieved of his duties with immediate effect for breach of satire production rule 1: If using derivative material thou shalt at least refrain from recycling tired, old jokes about tired, old presidents.  Letters Home rejects having to resort to this course of action, and welcomes your visit in future.   Thank you.

That time just before everything changes

When something suddenly happens to you that has the potential to change your life forever, you look back at those moments just before to search for some sort of meaning.  Was what you were thinking some sort of clue that went ignored?  Was choosing one path over the other just a decision among dozens we make every day, a different choice just delaying the inevitable?

I’m sitting here starting the second week of six with my right leg gripped in a brace from the ankle to hip after blowing out a tendon skiing, getting emergency surgery, and spending nearly a week in hospital.

I was skiing along a ridge following little red-haired girl as we made our way back to Samnaun, Switzerland, when I stopped to look at the vista spread out to the right.  It was like everything you dream a day in the mountains should be.   The sky a deep blue, the roiling froth of mountain peaks spread out in all directions.  No wind.  Uncrowded.  Just a Dad and his girl seizing the day we’d planned and looked forward to for months and months.  The second day of two weeks and it was already perfect.

We were in Austria, but the Swiss mountains loomed closer, and as I glanced over at to my right down the cliff and the blinding clarity of the snow across the valley, I called out ahead for her to stop and just take a look at it herself.  I wanted to catch up with her so we could stand there together, so that I could remind her that this is what it’s all about.   It’s not just the feel of your skis on the snow, the sweet spot you hit when years and years of practice lets you accomplish a fluid and effortless turn one after the other.  It’s not the speed – though that’s part of the exhilaration you kind of get addicted to – and it’s most definitely not about looking good or trying to impress anyone or comparing this one to that.

It’s about stopping to appreciate what’s all around you.  The feeling you get when you really see where you are among the mountains, the vista, the fresh air.

But she was already so far ahead of me that she didn’t hear, and I felt compelled to move on and catch up far sooner than I wanted to.

We met up at the top of a black run down to the left.  The ridge traverse led to a blue run – a much easier way down – which we could see in the distance further on and down to the left.

“So which one do you want to take?” she asks me.  ”The blue or the black?”

“The black, for sure.”

OK!

We flew off beside one another down the wide, flat expanse.  There was no other skier near us.  The first few turns felt really good as they had both days, and I was thinking about which lift we might take first to get us closer to the Swiss border and home, and what we’d be making for dinner, when suddenly it felt like my right thigh burst out of its skin, and I was down.  I squirm and cringe just writing this, a feeling I get when I rehearse to myself in German what I’m going to tell the doctor.  The pain doesn’t come back, but it’s this feeling of helplessness and incomprehension, because I still don’t know how it happened.

In an instant I knew from the pain that something serious had gone wrong and that this would be my last time on skis for a very long while.  I was just beginning to bounce head first down the hill on my back as that thought flashed, but by the time I’d stopped and rotated so I could use the good leg to get up to a standing position, I thought: this isn’t so bad.  I don’t feel anything at all anymore.

Two women stopped and asked if I was OK, as they’d seen the fall and heard me screaming.  They asked if they should tell the ski patrol at the bottom of the lift.

“I think I’m going to be OK,” I said, the red-haired girl standing beside me.  ”I’m going to try to make it down by myself.”

No chance of that.  My first attempt at moving the leg was instant agony, and somehow I was on my ass again, sliding down a few metres further, my daughter scrambling behind to grab and stop me.

Refusing help was denial of that first thought that this was a serious injury.  This can’t be happening.  It’s never happened before.  It’s only the start of our ski vacation.  I’m healthy, I can ski well, I’ve got the rest of my life to enjoy this and I’m going to prove it.

Another pair of skiers stopped to ask the same thing, but this time we were pretty emphatic.

“I’m really injured,” I told them.  ”I’m going to need to be taken off the hill.”

Adolf Hitler is my idle —- still more search terms that coughed up this blog

While I recover from a bad ski injury – sure to be blogged about because I now have a lot of time to lie around the house – I thought I’d clean out my draft post drawer.  Much easier than cleaning out your sock drawer.

Here’s one that’s been sitting around for a bit.

One of the wonderful things wretched bloggers get to look forward to every once in a while is a look at the dashboard behind the pretty facade to find a fresh batch of search terms to ponder.  Over the years – just check that sidebar – the anonymous masses have entered quite a selection of terms into the great algorithmic storm that is Google, but that list is getting a little dusty.  An update is long overdue.

Adolf Hitler is my idle

No doubt our homophonically challenged goose-stepper was on the prowl for fodder to shore up his twisted worldview.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the image that popped up on his screen was either that of a flatulent Führer overflowing the throne, or of the swastika-splashed chess set we came across in an alleyway windowshop in Istanbul.

Stork sex

Say. No. More!

Snake eats man

No, it doesn’t!  Snake eats cat, though.  For the longest time I thought it was a little dog hanging out of the business end of that 6-foot long reptile an old girlfriend and I nearly stumbled over while out on a hike in the wild northeastern pathways of Hong Kong.  It took a commenter to point out the little feline paws.

Cheerleader shits herself

Ewww… But in the interest of truth and openness, it must be included.  The search for inspirational incontinence may have failed this time, but this blog’s cheerleader photos still get lots of viewers:

dutch chicks ice skating naked

You will never find this, ever, so stop looking.  Dutch people take their ice skating far too seriously to be caught sliding around the windmills bare-assed to the wind.  But googling ice skating holland usually brings up at least two or three of my photos, including this one…

…which one blogger recently saw fit to steal without attribution, a link back, or so much as a fuck you, sucker.  Bloggers like that should be banished to myspace.  At least she had the decency to take it down when I complained.

i think most of us would be horrified to meet ourselves and discover what everyone else already knows about us- calvin and hobbes

Sometimes I read over old posts and can’t recognise the person who wrote it.  Have things changed that much in six years?

Is it legal in Germany to shower nude in front of the window for all to see?

I’ve nothing against nudity.  I’m nude quite a lot, especially in the German sauna, sharing space with genders masculine, feminine, and neuter

But there’s a time and space for everything, and this morning, I said to myself, enough’s enough.  Why do we have to avoid our front window every morning because we don’t want to suffer the sight once again of some asscrack who lives in an apartment across the courtyard on the same level as ours drying off his package?

If he were schlendering around the sauna landscape looking for his flip-flops while he flipped and flopped around, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

But the window is as a thin layer that separates little from the public space and the private, especially when it’s dark out and you’re standing in a room with all the lights on.

So if it’s normally not legal to be walking around nude in public, is it legal to do so in your own space for all to see?

Do we have to put up with this?  I don’t engage my German-resident readers enough even when I’m blogging regularly, but I’m asking you now: what do you know about cases like this?  Can we do or say anything or is he free to carry on as he pleases?