Eureka!

Evidently not all French male doctors are scary, as we found out last night. Yes, last night. Here's the latest:

Today marks one straight week of sickness in our house. I was hoping that we'd be on the mend by now, but not so. I was willing to ride it out. Miss S was getting better, so I thought Miss M would follow suit. The Husband wasn't as convinced. Last night, we were firmly, and vocally, entrenched in opposing camps. I chose the "Let's wait and see what happens" camp while he chose the "The holidays are coming and I don't want to have the hospital be the only option" camp. I saw the logic in his arguments (eventually) so he made the appointment with the doctor. This was around 5 PM. Now, in the US, you'd be lucky to get a person on the phone after 5 PM. Not here. We even got an appointment for 7:30 PM on the same day! WOW! I may not love the French health care system, but you can always find a doctor.

You might be wondering what the fuss was all about. Well ... Miss S had not been eating well or drinking much at all for almost a week, and Miss M was not far behind. We were most worried about dehydration, and did not want to spend the holidays in the hospital with our kids hooked up to IVs. To top that, Miss M had been running a really high fever and just didn't seem to be getting better. Over-reaction or not, we were off to the doctor. Not our regular nice French lady doctor (she's on vacation), but a man. I was nervous, but hoped that having Daddy along would help the girls.

We walked in and met a really tall Frenchman who immediately asked us if we preferred speaking English. I almost did a happy dance. This was not the doctor Miss S and I had visited with just a few weeks ago. Evidently, this guy is covering for our doctor while she is on vacation. He was wonderful with the girls, and seemed very interested in why we were there. He asked lots of questions to make sure that he understood our concerns, and was very gentle during the exams. Noone cried this time. We did experience a little extra concern when he kept having Miss M take deep breaths, and was moving the stethoscope all over the right side of her back with a very concerned look on his face. Hmm ... this can't be a good thing.

Turns out it isn't all bad. The doctor put Miss M on antibiotics, and strongly suggested a chest x-ray. The husband is with her right now at the raiologists office. Hopefully it will be something easy and not pneumonia. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it and have a happy Christmas NOT in the hospital (please don't let those be famous last words).