Crippled Caleb and Toothless Christian

During our time in Czech we had two incidents where we needed medical help so we experienced excellent care in the Czech medical system. It was quite different than we are used to, but we certainly have no complaints about the type of care we received as well as the friendliness of those who helped the "foreigners."

First, Christian was with us as we took a walk into town. He was bouncing along as usual and was smiling happily when he suddenly demonstrated why they don't give four year olds drivers' licenses. He quickly cut right in front of someone else leaving only an inch for them to stop. They didn't stop and he fell to the ground and got up with a seriously cracked front tooth. We didn't want to take him to the dentist as we have all enjoyed his joyful baby tooth smile, but nothing could be done about it. Rick found out where the dentist lived and knocked on her door. She told him to come in and looked at his tooth and knew she couldn't do anything for it besides pull it as he would have lost it before long anyway. She had Rick hold him in the dentist chair and then gave Christian a shot without him even knowing it and pulled the tooth. When she was finished, she gave Christian a little Czech truck and then charged us a grand total of about nine dollars. She did excellent work in a clean office and we were grateful for her helpfulness.

A few days later Caleb came to me and said, "Mommy, I'm bleeding a lot," and he was as he was leaving a trail of blood behind him. He had stepped on a sharp rock and left a big gash in his foot. When we got the bleeding under control, we started for the hospital and put him in the stroller as we headed for where the lady at information told us to go. It was a plain concrete block building that said something that we could understand as being "orthopedics." Here we knocked on a door again and a nurse appeared. She asked us if we had the Czech medical card and when we said "No" and explained our situation, she said, "well, it doesn't matter anyway" and took us into a room. A doctor joined us with another nurse and they proceeded to quickly clean and glue his foot back together rather than using stiches. The room was very plain and looked like something from the 50's, but it was very clean and the staff was very careful to keep things clean and be friendly.

In probably less than half an hour from the time we walked into the information desk, we were walking back out with Caleb bandaged and happy and the doctor said we didn't owe him anything. I must say that although the room was old, plain and didn't look at all like our hospitals, they certainly not lacking at all—and we didn't have to fill out any Hippa forms. For that matter, they never even asked our name or address or had us fill out any form. Oh, for the days when life was that simple!