Manic Bookstore Cafe

Are antibiotics always the answer? For those of you waiting to find out what happened to my poor sick boy in the public health care system of Poland: 1) he was given a health card! (Apparently my insistence that I have health insurance through the university was convincing, even without any evidence ... and no, I don't have a contract yet, and I haven't paid into the system yet ... In Poland, the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly. On the other hand, I have recently informed the university bookkeeper of my town of birth, my mother's first name, and my father's first name [why?!]. So health insurance must be not far behind.) 2) he was given yet more prescriptions -- for another antibiotic, in case he has a sinus infection, for nose drops to penetrate his stuffy nasal passages, for allergy medicine in the spring... Polish doctors love their prescription pads. It's not quite clear, though, what is going on in his sinuses, because our doctor is a pediatric GP....

My Polish is definitely getting better. Though my child is not. The cough did, after all, eventually turn into a bacterial infection of the throat, according to a doctor at the private clinic of Luxmed -- a pediatric laryngologist who for a mere 160 PLN wrote us more prescriptions than you could shake a stick at. This was an enormous clinic way on the outskirts of the city (we even had to jaywalk across a 6 lane road and trek through a large mudfield to get to the clinic -- it seems to have been constructed for the future car lifestyle that Poles are aspiring to, so it was quite far from the bus stop). There were very few patients out there, and we spent some time trying to figure out what the doctor does between appointments. Dr. Wrona Maciej spoke some English, was very sweet, and sent us on our way in about 4 1/2 minutes. Very efficient. A week later, though, my son is still sick. And now he feels pressure in his sinuses, so we are worried about another sinus infection like...