Loss.
It was October 2021, one year and three months since I moved to Europe, and after much desperate job searching and taking on some short-term roles that led to nowhere, I finally landed a much-coveted CDI position in Paris.
CDI, the most sought-after type of contract, stands for contrat à durée indéterminée, meaning a contract for a permanent position. After numerous interview rounds and being thrilled when I was finally extended an offer, I signed the contract, convinced my “real” life in France was now about to begin. I was also told I would start my job with a six month période d’essai, that is, a probationary period. Since French employment laws are complex and heavily protect the worker, a période d'essai gives both parties a predetermined amount of time to walk away cleanly if it doesn’t work out, similar to at-will employment in the U.S. But even for France, 6 months was an unusually long time and it made me extremely nervous.
This offer had been my absolute dream job; I was so terrified of losing the position during the période d’essai that I was determined to show them I was the most marvellous worker and would be the best employee they had ever hired. I knew I had to show them this at all costs.
It was agreed upon that I do a month-long training stint starting immediately on my first day; I had to go south and stay in Lyon to work with the team based there. I dutifully rented a tiny airbnb and made preparations to temporarily live in another city in France, very familiar now with the prospect of moving around Europe.
I had been incredibly proud of myself for finding an excellent price for the airbnb and for having booked the cheapest train tickets I could find. The week before I started, I imagined how impressed my future managers would be I found a month-long living situation in a competitive city so quickly (truly, no small feat) and that they would praise me for being so conscientious and frugal with my company expenses. I am going to crush this job, I told myself, tossing and turning the night before my first day.
The move down to Lyon went smoothly, the job started without incident, and I was unbelievably happy to be in this ultra-French office setting, the first job I’d had in France where the work was truly conducted primarily in French. I also fell in love with Lyon itself, a gorgeous city that is the true gastronomic heart of France. On my first day, the entire team went out to lunch with me and popped open a nice bottle of wine. The fanfare had surprised and touched me, even though I initially refused the wine as I was far too nervous to drink on my first day, until the bewildered look my French manager gave me made me say, “ok, allez,” to which he poured me a small glass.
The pressure was intense. I was hyper-focused on not making any mistakes and on blowing everyone’s socks off with how competent I am, knowing that I was a "risky" hire as I couldn’t (yet) fluently speak French and the role itself was a bit of a jump from my previous work in the U.S., albeit in the same sphere.
So when one cloudy and rainy Saturday I was roaming around Lyon, enjoying the weekend on my own, and I slipped and fell hard, I decided to simply buy band-aids and be done with it, ignoring the throbbing pain. When I got home, I saw that I had scraped a thick layer of skin off the top of my foot on the slippery and jagged cobblestone, and that the raw patch of peeled skin was shiny and red. And definitely still throbbing.
Well, that can’t be good.
I quickly put on a giant band-aid, purchased from the nearest pharmacy, ignored the pain, and went jogging for miles on both Saturday and Monday morning.
By the time I was back in the office after my jog on Monday, my foot was pulsating. I had put a fresh band-aid on it and was doing my best to keep my weight on my other foot.
“What happened to your foot?” My manager inquired in English (he wanted to practice with me) when he saw the giant band-aid plastered on the top of my foot, very visible thanks to my ballet flats.
“It’s totally fine, just a small scrape,” I answered back.
I noticed deep pain every time I walked and especially as I took the stairs and had to put any kind of pressure on my foot. I went to the bathroom to change the bandaid when it was getting too loose and noticed the wound seemed to be getting more and more….liquid. It was pretty gross.
Over the next few days, I stopped jogging but, paranoid that I would balloon in weight from the nonstop delicious charcuterie that dominated my life now that I was in Lyon, I decided I had to at least walk to and from work. These walks quickly became excruciating. I told myself to stop being such a baby and suppressed the pain through sheer mental willpower, purposefully ignoring it. I was for sure healing and this was just part of the process, right?
Finally, after roughly eight days of this, I took a picture of the wound which had now turned a sallow gray color (it was also still “wet”), and sent it to my little sister, who works in the medical field.
“That does not look good, dude,” she texted me back. “Better go to a doctor and have it checked out.”
Shit. This was what I was trying to avoid at all costs.
I did not yet have the carte vitale, the national health insurance card of France. HR at my new company was still stuck on my paperwork and I had no idea when I would officially qualify for the card and when my health insurance would kick in. Like the majority of French companies, my company also provided a mutuelle, or private insurance, which is an added layer of coverage. But at the moment, I had absolutely nothing and I would have to pay everything out of pocket.
The next day was Friday, another work day. The pain was so bad at this point from walking; when I could barely make it up the stairs to the office, I decided to schedule a doctor’s appointment on Doctolib. I saw that there was a general practitioner around the corner and he had a smattering of same-day appointments available. The latest I could find was 4 o’clock for this afternoon. Swallowing hard and mustering all my courage, I very shyly asked my manager if I could leave early to go to the doctor and “have my foot looked at.”
“Oui, oui,” he said with a wave of his hand, almost offended that I felt I had to ask.
And so, I gathered my things and with a very concerned look from my lovely French back-office assistant (I just adored her) who wished me well as she had seen me wincing in pain the last week, I left to go to this doctor. I was dismayed to find when I arrived that since it was an office that took round-the-clock same-day appointments, the waiting room was packed to the brim with a bunch of very grumpy French people who all seemed to have semi-urgent issues. In broken French, I checked in at the desk and was told to sit and wait, despite being perfectly on time for my own appointment. After roughly an hour, I was finally called in to see the doctor. Oh no, I though immediately as I saw him. He seemed to be about a hundred years old and peered at me through his glasses, gruffly asking me what my issue was, zero patience or bedside manner.
My French was still not great, so I explained that I fell and hurt my foot, that my sister had recommended I see a doctor. He motioned for my to sit on the medical chair and to stretch out my foot. He peered at my foot and - with his bare, unwashed hands - proceeded to peel off the most recent band-aid I had put on. It came off to reveal the large wound which at this point was basically festering.
“Ah non,” he said immediately and loudly, tusking disapprovingly. “Ah non, ah non, ah non, c'est pas bon.”
I started to feel afraid.
“C’est pas bon, Madame,” he repeated, and turned to go towards his sink to now wash his hands. This means, it’s not good.
“C’est pas bon ?” I repeated back, panic now rising in me. He began to speak very quickly to his nurse, also in the room with us, gesturing wildly at my foot.
He turned to me and was practically wagging his finger in my face, repeating again and again in French, “C’est pas bon.”
At this point, I was absolutely terrified.
“Pourquoi ?” I managed to get out. Why?
He began speaking again in very fast French and emphasized loss, which absolutely freaked me out. Holy shit, was I about to lose my foot? Were they going to saw my foot off at the ankle? I tried to take deep breaths but began to shake and I could barely make out that he was now chastising me for not coming in sooner. I tried, haltingly, to explain that nobody goes to the doctor in America, it costs a fortune there, to which he shook his head violently and went on another tirade, chastising me again.
He practically slapped a fresh bandage on my foot and motioned for me to come to his desk where he began to scribble things down on a paper, none of which I could understand. The nurse hovered around, looking worried.
“Vous devez passer une radiographie dès que possible,” he said.
What?
He peered at me, as I stared at him, confused.
“Radiographie. X-ray !” He was practically shouting at me at this point.
“Oh no,” I protested.
An X-ray? Out of pocket? In this economy? I absolutely did not have the money for that. No way. But he shook his head and drowned out my protests, repeating that I had no choice. He scribbled down a number on the paper which I was able to surmise belonged to another nurse and I had to call her for some kind of follow-up care.
And with that, I was sent on my way, foot still throbbing, with a prescription in hand for a heavy round of antibiotics, fresh bandages, and antiseptic spray. After stopping by the pharmacy to pick this all up, I made it home to my little airbnb, took my first antibiotic, and burst into tears.
I was spiraling hard and texted my sister while sobbing: “What if I lose my foot? Who is going to marry me with no foot?”
Admittedly, this was not my proudest feminist moment.
But I only cried harder, imagining a bloody stump of a foot and me hobbling around for the rest of my days. My sister told me to calm down, she felt it was highly unlikely I would lose my foot.
Since this is France and it was a Friday night, I had no chance of getting an emergency X-ray at this hour. I did however call the nurse listed on the paper, who was incredibly sweet and told me she had been notified of my case by the doctor. I was to come in daily and she was to change my bandages and she repeated I should get the X-ray as soon as possible so they could evaluate. How I managed all of this in French, I still do not know. I was running on sheer adrenaline at this point.
First thing the next day, I began looking at X-ray labs in the city. The vast majority were closed, it’s a Saturday, it’s France. Why would anyone need an X-ray on a Saturday, am I right? Finally, I found a lab open across the river and I called them and explained to the receptionist in desperate and very grammatically flawed French that I urgently needed a “radiographie.” She sighed on the phone, completely unbothered by the possibility of me staying unmarried forever and dying alone with a sawed off foot.
“If you can come in 20 minutes, I can squeeze you in,” she told me in French.
“20 minutes?” I repeated back to her, hope rising in me, wanting to make sure I understood correctly.
“Yes, 20 minutes.” And she hung up.
There was no time for the train, I immediately called an Uber, a huge luxury for me with my shitty salary, and gathered my prescription note and bandages so they would have a full picture of my case. The car blessedly arrived right away and the driver, very sympathetic to my plight and urgency to get there quickly, zoomed across the city and bridge, landing me in front of the X-ray lab within 21 minutes of the receptionist hanging up on me.
I was seen right away by some lovely technicians who took their time and were thorough, getting every angle of the foot. Sensing that I was around slightly more sympathetic healthcare workers this time, I asked why an X-ray had been ordered.
“To make sure the infection has not traveled to the bone,” the technician told me kindly, and in slow, deliberate French.
It was only then that I realized the doctor had not, in fact, said the English word loss with a heavy French accent as I had initially thought. He had said l’os, or the French word for bone. Relief flooded me as the lightbulb went off in my head. They were simply checking the extent of the infection to see if I needed an even heavier round of antibiotics.
Thankfully, it was quickly determined the infection had not spread to the bone and I was fine. When I went back to the front desk to pay, bracing myself for hundreds of Euros in medical costs, the receptionist told me my grand total was 36€. I was gobsmacked.
Is this a joke?
Later that afternoon, I went to my first nurse appointment at the same doctor’s office. I will never forget how sweet she was to me, a complete antithesis to the doctor who, I would later find out when she told me, was actually her father.
She gently changed my bandages and told me she was also in charge of monitoring my healing as I went through the antibiotic treatment. I got to know her really well as I would go in daily for two weeks (all of which I had to pay out of pocket, 20€ for each bandage-changing session).
The nurse told me if there is one thing she doesn’t mess with, it’s feet. Apparently, foot injuries (and hand injuries) can get infected at lightning speed and she always tells her family and friends to go see a doctor right away for even the mildest of scrapes. She also hilariously recounted how she had gotten her own foot infection after falling on the beach in Thailand during a Full Moon Party. I healed quickly during those next two weeks and felt so much better from her patient kindness and care.
Once the pain began to subside from the antibiotics, only then did I realize just how terrible the pain had been all those days and marvelled that I had been able to walk at all (the nurse was also amazed I was even able to stand with how bad the infection was).
I decided to look at the positive side of things and told myself, “for every crisis you face in France, you will learn an entire new roster of vocabulary,” a rule I still live by today. Silver lining or something.
After some weeks with my new colleagues, I shyly admitted to them how bad the foot saga really was and I was promptly warned with much sympathy that the cobblestones in Lyon are truly very dangerous when it rains.
When I finally came back to Paris after my stint in Lyon, I submitted my expenses for the airbnb and train to HR and was astounded when the head of HR politely told me they were not covering the Airbnb, meaning I had essentially paid double my rent in one month to train for this company. I reeled in shock.
Apparently, it had “never been discussed” nor “agreed upon” during the interview process and the company would not be covering it. It had not even occurred to me that it was in the realm of possibility that this would not be covered as I was fully employed and working; something like this would have been unthinkable at my previous companies in the U.S.
I did calculations of what this trip had cost me, coupled with the out-of-pocket medical costs. It was an enormous sum. And HR still had not managed to get me my social security number which would open up coverage to the national healthcare system for me. Apparently because I was a "foreigner" there was a "lag" and the paperwork was "difficult."
I felt intense rage and I felt betrayed. I was paying a huge sum of my own money for things that should have been covered. But this was my dream job, right? So I quelled my rage. I didn’t say anything. I nodded and smiled politely as the HR director told me in her fake-sweet voice that there must have been a “misunderstanding.”
And still, to this day, there is a large, dark scar on my left foot, forever a reminder of how my first real French work contract started off with a medical crisis and with me becoming completely broke. And for those wondering, my période d'essai was cut short and ended by my managers at four months instead of six because I had done such a phenomenal job, they had zero doubts they wanted to keep me.
I’m just happy I still have my foot.
French vocabulary to know when you slip on the wet cobblestones in an enchanting French city and need urgent medical care so that you do not lose your foot :
- Une radiographie - X-ray
- L’os - Bone
- La douleur - Pain
- La fièvre - Fever
- Le médecin - Doctor
- Un/Une infirmier/infermière - Nurse
- La salle d’attente - Waiting room
- Une ordonnance - Prescription
- Les bandages médicaux - Medical bandages
- Les antibiotiques - Antibiotics
