I hope we wouldn't need it for months to come
But on the other hand, when it's needed, we have this expensive insurance for a reason, and I feel we should at least use it instead of postponing it. I was pushing my boyfriend to just go and see a freaking doctor for about two weeks now. What happened? Well, just like our daughter, he has had problems with his ears since his childhood. He always mentioned that probably our daughter would inherit it from him with a little bad luck, and it seems she did. It's not that I never had ear problems as a child though, on the contrary, I remember having plenty of double ear infections during my childhood as well. I just never had tubes like many other children in my class had over the years.
So did my boyfriend and a few years ago, our daughter had tubes placed in her ears too.
My boyfriend and doctors
He has to be in so much pain before I can convince him to see one, while on the other hand, if I should see one, he's pushing me quite early on, lol. I personally believe that ears and toothaches belong to the few pains that can drive you nuts when trying to manage the pain. We usually have some sort of relief at home like ear drops and painkillers like ibuprofen as well as paracetamol, but when things go south, heavier stuff is needed, unfortunately. In Budapest, I had better ear drops available as I remembered what the doctor recommended to me the previous time and since then I had them available so I could always first try to calm the pain myself without the need for a doctor. Thankfully, 50% of the time, this was enough to get rid of it. A good night's sleep, painkillers, and drops would do the trick.
Weeks of self-help
Here we have to build a new "collection" of ear meds because I threw out the open bottles of meds in Budapest instead of carrying them here. So when ear trouble arose, my boyfriend went to the pharmacist and started cleaning his ears with audispray and hoped it would bring him some relief. Unfortunately, after some days, he went back to ask for eardrops as it didn't seem to help and the pharmacist told him it would take some days before this would work, if it would work, of course. I think if you include the paracetamol and ibuprofens we bought, we were already at least 35 euros poorer, so at that point, I'm already leaning towards advising him to stop self-doctoring and see a doctor, we pay this stupid fee for a reason. He's stubborn and has no time to go or call them, excuses! LOL, you make time!
Carrying it over the weekend (or not)
A week ago on Friday, I already said I think he should go and see a doctor and not carry it over the weekend. After all, we aren't living in a big city, and even with private insurance, we must travel to the big city to have urgent care during the weekends. He decided to sit it out and hope for the best. It went ok, no heavy pain appeared but it also didn't get better. For several days, I told him to get to the doc, but of course, he waited until Friday to finally get things moving. I had to navigate to the system for the first time because we have not used it since we have this insurance. This means I lost my whole morning on the fact that he needs a doctor so that he could continue working, sigh. I didn't feel like calling for him so I let him call them himself, only to find out that the line didn't even ring. This falls completely in the line of expectations in our life, haha. Seriously, it's just hilarious at this point! It wasn't yesterday when it happened, though, but afterward, it made me laugh!
Help from the insurance
At some point, the insurance was called, they said the lines were too busy and to try again later. We tried 20x times in the next hours, but it didn't ring. Insurance was called again and this lady checked it again and found out there was indeed an issue with the phone and then told him the ear doctor was not available so he could see a general practitioner, fine, just give him a doc, any doc will do at this point! Take that with a grain of salt, of course, but in most cases, a general practitioner can help with these issues. He only had 40 minutes to get there after he hung up, and we should be able to get there in 15 minutes, including walking and waiting for the bus etc.
The appointment
Something that happens a lot here, is buses that don't show up and skip a full half hour has happened several times. It would have been 30 minutes of walking, so he would have been better off choosing that option if he'd known the bus would flake. Eventually, he arrived a bit late but was seen right away. His ear drum was not visible so she could only prescribe antibiotics and drops for that one. The other ear was cleaned, and it turned out very needed. He has to come back next Thursday to check if it's all gone and maybe it can be cleaned then, depending on the status. Meanwhile, if the pain gets worse, come back.
More pain today
He woke up with a lot of pain today, but I asked him did you wake up for pain meds halfway through the night? He said no, so I blame the fact that he didn't refill the paracetamol intake during the night for having more pain this morning. I remember when in a lot of pain for ear infections, every 4 hours is really needed and usually it gets nasty just 30 minutes before the 4 hours are over. This is exactly what happened today too. He took them at 9 am and I set an alarm to give them to him at 1 pm today, at exactly 12.30 he started to complain that it was getting worse. The medical center he went to isn't open until Monday morning so I'm hoping he can postpone at least until then before he has to see the doc again. Otherwise, it will most likely be public, and I have not read many good things about the local "Centro de Salud urgencias". But when it's needed, he should go there anyway. Fingers crossed I can keep him in not too much pain during the weekend by making sure he takes meds every four hours. Hopefully, the antibiotics will start to work soon.
Slow start, ok outcome
We were wondering why on earth we had private insurance if the one center nearby is not answering anything. It turns out it was just bad luck with their phone line, and if you cut out this part of the experience, the care was good and he even got the results in Spanish and English. On top of that, he got a referral for an ultrasound to check his stomach area again because he mentioned responding badly to certain foods. So this is a fruitful first experience in the end, even though he's still in pain now.
I decided to get things moving for our daughter as well because she seems to be hearing less and less again and needs to be checked by a specialist to keep track of the progress of her hearing. I suspect she may need new tubes, to be honest, but let's first see the doctor and take it from there. I made an appoint me for Thursday after school and am happy I did instead of waiting for the next infection to appear in her ears.
