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You are here: Home Health & Fitness Healthcare Expat Story: Culture clashes with health issues

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21/11/2005Expat Story: Culture clashes with health issues

You might think that modern science and medicine would have brought some sort of consensus to the understanding of everyday illness and health in France. But non.

Mr. FdC and I, for example, have very different ideas of what constitutes everything health-related, from a common cold to a full-blown flu. Regardless of the weather -- or of the temperature inside the apartment itself -- he bundles up our very warm-blooded two-year-old according to the calendar.

October? Well, that means a t-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt and/or a jacket. Who cares if it's still seventy degrees outside?

Much like our French friends in Florida -- who insisted on wearing sweaters and scarves during most of what the calendar told them should be "Fall" (but what, in reality, is just the tail end of a long summer) -- Mr. FdC seems convinced that a draft of air, any draft of air, will promptly make our toddler sick with a cold.

My argument that colds are viral, that is, requiring exposure to a virus in order to develop, falls on deaf ears. He simply doesn't buy it. And so the little one, bless his heart, must tackle the Indian Summers looking like a cross between a Goodwill advertisement and Kenny on South Park.

Another source of discord in our household is this: just when is someone sick enough to need an appointment with the doctor? Me, I say almost dead; but my dear husband…well, at the first sign of a sniffle -- and that goes for above-mentioned toddler, too.

Of course, that doctor's visit won't have been worth anything at all to Mr. FdC unless he comes back having filled no less than ten prescriptions, adding to the clutter that used to be in our medicine cabinet, but that now fills a large plastic box under the bathroom sink and is lovingly referred to, by me, as the ‘pharmacy'.

The French relationship to pharmaceuticals is legendary with Anglophone expatriates. The fact that they like to take everything in either water-soluble -- think Alka Seltzer -- or suppository form is only the tip of the iceberg. But that's a column for another day…

Now, this might be a good place to mention that I am from Louisiana and am therefore pretty well versed in the area of "imaginary" ailments. My mother and grandmother, for example, upon experiencing any type of sharp pain, will insist that someone has their doll out and is poking it with pins. Made-up hoodoo voodoo, in other words, has always been a part of my life.

Speaking of which, there is a particularly interesting condition -- peculiar to the French -- that takes the cake: la crise de foie. The liver crisis.

Unlike Americans who -- after ingesting a particularly rich (and alcohol-laden) meal --would associate the accompanying indigestion with a stomach ache, the French will generally assume the liver is the culprit.

Nevermind that French medical journals will insist that the condition simply doesn't exist; a heavy Christmas dinner, if one is not careful, will bring on a full-fledged liver crisis, and you simply can't tell the average French citizen otherwise.

Why am I bringing up la crise de foie today, you ask? Because it would appear that Mr. FdC has one planned for my parents who will arrive in France for the birth of their first granddaughter.

As the French obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving, the foods typically associated with this American holiday are hard to find -- and, I might add, very expensive -- here in Paris.

I considered making a sweet potato pie but after a trip to Carrefour -- where, in the "exotic" produce section I found exactly two sweet potatoes, scraggly looking things from Israel -- I changed my mind.

Too, there's the issue of finding a butcher who has access to an actual turkey; and besides, even if I could find one, how would I cook the darn thing when my oven is roughly the size of a microwave?

Add all this to the fact that I've never been a particular fan of the holiday, which always seemed like such a picnic for the men in my family (who, after scarfing down in fifteen minutes flat what my mother has just spent five hours cooking, always retire to the couch to watch sports), I decided not to even bother trying to put together a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner in France.

No, better to stick with what our household chef does best, and that's French country cooking. And French country holiday cooking, at that, which, as you know, can be roughly translated as a multi-course, extremely rich, four to six-hour long meal, liberally sprinkled with a variety of wines and liquors and finished off with an elegant dessert and coffee.

And which, if my own experience with holiday meals in France is any indication, will be sure to give my jet-lagged parents their first experience with that infamous French specialty: la crise de foie.

So, while there is a possibility that on Thanksgiving Day I will already be at the maternity hospital recovering from our daughter's birth (and taking full advantage of some well-deserved toddler-free naptime), my husband will be back here at the apartment doing his best to make sure that my parents don't miss out on a special American holiday, and ensuring they get a nice dose of French culture in the process. Which is what son-in-laws are for, after all.

At least our GP is open late and takes walk-ins; judging by Mr. FdC's planned menu for that day, it looks as if my parents are going to need her.

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