A bent weekend

A combination of nice and warm weather (sunny, 28°C), a good place (an amusement park), good friends and colleagues were indications for a very spectacular weekend. In fact, it wasn't for me at all :( This would be a perfect post for the fish's blues...

This weekend, we went to Efteling, an amusement park near Eindhoven with all kind of attractions: roller coasters, boat raft, and all kind of kermis-like things. Great! I enjoyed a lot until I got off the Python (plattegrond -> Ruigrijk -> Phyton), a very nice roller coaster. Everything went well, despite some natural fear before riding it, I enjoy the ride very much. I was even thinking of doing it once more! But when I tried to turn my neck to the right, oh oh a pain started to disturb me a little bit. It continued extending quite fast actually, so just for precaution, I made a visit to the emergency service at the park. I wasn't in a happy situation, but they didn't help quickly either! I had to wait for about one hour to get to a doctor who did some checking on my neck, and confirmed a muscular contraction in its right side. It was something like a torticollis but much worse. So imagine that I had to keep my neck completely turned to my left without even being able to turn it a little bit to the left, with a very limited up and down motion. The doctor just prescribed me some painkillers and basicly send me home to have rest.

Okay, okay, I don't blame them for my bad luck, but at least, they could have more staff to solve more quickly these kinds of situations, and for example, let my friends continuing enjoying the day as they were waiting for the diagnose of my apparently serious problem.

Anyway, after it, I was condemn to wait seated while my friends were in the attractions which I couldn't join, as I basically was unmobilized... Even though this very bad experience, I appreciate that they kept watching at me, taking care of me. And somehow, I acknowledge that I spoil such a nice day a little bit...

After the come back home, an open pharmacy needed to be found. The one opened was next to the emergency entrance of the Máxima medisch centrum, a local hospital. As the painkiller I had taken didn't make much effect on me, I went to visit a doctor there. The very same story as before: I took about one hour to get a diagnose (the same as before, luckily). Feel forms, answer questions to the receptionist, and bear the jokes of the nurse who knew I got my bent neck in an amusement park. Thankfully, I was with a friend, and we had the time to talk and get update for the hour I had to wait for the doctor to come and just tell me go home and take these pills...

As a mental note: what would have happened if my injure was something really serious that required quick action? Nothing, the Dutch way of acting in this kind of situation would've condemned me to the worst... I'm not saying it based on this single incident, but on the many I've heard of...

In a nutshell, financially speaking, I have lost 27€ for the entrance to the park, 15€ in food inside the park, and around 71€ in medicines which aren't covered by my insurance company because of the new regulations in Netherlands(1). That is, I spent 100+€ for a bent neck, but there was good weather(2)... Of course, I should tell you that I slept on Sunday until 4pm because of one of the muscular relaxing pill. A wasted weekend...

(1) The first 150€ that you spend in health services are from this year under your account, this is the new regulation. But they were good enough to not to raise the monthly fee (100+€ in my case). Isn't it an implicit cost raise?

(2) I quote someone say of today: "It seems that summer started this year on August 30th!!" to what I replied "... and it didn't lasted more than 3 days..." Yesterday already started to be chilly and today it's raining like crazy (current temperature is 12°C)

Pictures soon, so you can laugh with me, not at me...

Update: One photo of my bent neck, taking it with some humor. Thanks Kathie for it!!