I’ll spare you the details, but my feet have been having some growing pains getting used to winter boots from their new post-surgery shape & size.   I’d seen the podologue for it, but it seemed not to get any better.

We arrived to Morzine for Christmas holiday on Saturday and through the night had a hard time sleeping with the pain.  The next morning, Sunday, I realized we were in France and the pharmacy might be open on a Sunday, unlike Switzerland.  I visited but they couldn’t give me an antibiotic or anything to help (it’s common in Switzerland that pharmacists can prescribe meds) but advised there was a trauma doctor nearby I could visit who had Sunday hours.

I found the office and sat down and waited my turn two hours for the doctor, hearing the screams of those getting their shoulders readjusted into sockets and cuts cleaned up & stitched from the ski slopes.  Yikes!!

After meeting with the doctor, he frowned at my feet and said, “mumble…mumble….petit operation”.    The receptionist took me downstairs to the basement ‘operating room’, made a bath for my feet to sterilize them, started arranging a variety of instruments and indicated it would be “cinq ou dix minutes pour le docteur” (5 – 10 minutes).   It was over an hour wait.  Guess some more skiers had come in.  My comfort and peace of mind did not build during that hour.

They gave me anesthesia and so didn’t feel much as he removed the nails and a lot of the skin surrounding them which had grown very infected and bandaged me up.  But they said no skiing in the near future, at least until they could see me again at my check up Tuesday.  Which happened to be Christmas morning.   I thought it was incredible they put me in that day, but the lady indicated that they had to work on Christmas because the skiers still got hurt, so it didn’t bother them any to see me as well.

They wrote me many prescriptions to fill after the operation.   I tried to fill them immediately while still hopped up on the anesthesia but the pharmacy closes for a daily lunch break for two hours so hobbled back later in the day.

When I filled it, I was given painkillers, antibiotics, and a variety of bandages.   You don’t have to wait…French pharmacy techs fill immediately vs.  saying come back in 20 minutes.  I like this about France and Switzerland.  The bizarre thing was that she said my prescription called for a fresh bottle of anesthesia, but she couldn’t dispense it to me because I didn’t have a fridge in my hotel.  She said I’d have to come back and get it right before my follow up appointment.     I was a little confused why I would need more anesthesia anyhow, but with the language barrier, I just figured I’d go with it.

Hanging out the day of petit operation

I brought all my supplies back to my Christmas morning appointment, including the fresh bottle of anesthesia I’d just picked up.  The nurse used my supplies to fix me up, then took the anesthesia and kept it as well as some of my bandages.   It was then that I remembered something N mentioned when she was pregnant…she always had to go to the pharmacy before her routine shots and bring the medicine to the doctor.    This French doctor’s office was kind enough to “lend” me the anesthesia and bandages after my petit operation, but I had to reimburse them for it instead of them charging me like the US would.

After my follow up appointment, with my bag of stuff.  It’s BYOB (bring your own bandages) here.

I ended up with a third appointment on our last day, for the final check up, where she ended up giving me a bottle of iodine, after I said I didn’t have one, and knowing we were leaving town.

All in all, it cost 150 euros cash for my little petite operation and 30 euros for all my meds and supplies.  Unbelievably cheap.  Just grateful for the French doctor and the fact that my French is more up to par to handle these situations better!