Knorr Family Adventures

While my memory is really fresh - German dentist is nothing like American dentist!  At least MY American dentist was amazing, he was gentle, nothing he did ever hurt and I was a good patient going to him every 6 months for check ups.  Here, however, things went a little differently.  Chris went to a dentist that somebody recommended to him and he advised me against getting cleaning because he was in way too much pain during and afterwards.  I went for check up but even that was a bit painful so for 2 and a half years since we moved here, I have not gotten a professional cleaning.  That's a story before the actual story.  Today I went to a dentist who was recommended to me through a friend. The good news is that I am alive; I was a big girl and did not run out of the room mid-procedure. The bad news is that I actually cried (tears running down my cheeks) and the hygienist apologized about 25 times.  She said "I know it hurts but I gotta do it." The ...

This was my Thursday morning.  All 3 boys were home, Chris was in Boston.  See if you can guess what's going on based on the pictures below.  About 3 hours later I was right there next to the boys :( I am really thankful to have a tailor within 3 minutes of my house. Love it -  I drop off 3 pairs of Chris' ripped jeans, pay 10 Euros and magically 2 days later they are fixed.  Between Chris and I, we can do a lot of fixing ourselves, but jeans are just too much work to do. To offset the cheap price of fixing clothing, I just paid 60 Euros to have 2 comforters cleaned.  They do not fit into our washing machine and I really want them cleaned after the week I've had so far.   

Yes, we are still alive!  Life has been extremely busy in the last month – we traveled to many places including Prague, Amsterdam, Tallinn, Helsinki and many more.    More pictures to follow on those ... Many of us have also been sick; thus, the amount of time spent at various doctors is ridiculous.   I might have mentioned this before but it’s kind of crazy how much paperwork is needed to get stuff done here.   First I have to go to pediatrician to get the referral for the specialist (paper #1 ), then after we go see the specialist doctor I have to hand deliver the report (paper # 2) back to the pediatrician, then I have to drop off the prescription (paper #3) at the pharmacy   (yes, paper again!) and finally a day later I have to go pick that medicine up.   So at least 2 trips to pediatrician and usually 2 trips to pharmacy on top of the actual doctor!   Multiply that times 3 kids … Rant over; things are kind of looking up and w...

Before we left Pittsburgh, Andrei had occupation therapy where he worked a lot on his handwriting and other related services and he progressed really well but still had work to do.  His handwriting is pretty awful to begin with and it really matters here in Germany as the kids get older to have nice legible cursive.   The German pediatrician gave us a referral and told us about a center that should provide those services and after it took me forever to fill out tons of forms, we finally had an appointment back in August.  Two days before the scheduled appointment we got a phone call stating that the person we need to see is on sick leave until October and there is nobody else that we can talk to (apparently).  Ok, kind of pretty frustrated but I reschedule for October (keep in mind that I originally called them in the spring).  So we finally went and the first time, we met with the person and she gave us many more forms to fill out and told us to come back ...

The first attempt at writing this got deleted off my computer (my fault) so attempting one more time. S ince last time I wrote about Anton many things have happened.   Most importantly, today kindergarten staff is getting the Epi-pen training.   Since January Anton was only allowed to attend kindergarten if the owner was present.    It might not sound complicated until you think about the fact that prior to all of this happening, I have never even seen the owner and they own 2 other places.   That effectively means that owner is not always there.   Most of the time, I have no problems keeping Anton home if needed but a couple of times it has been a bit problematic when I have had other plans.  Also, in the last month we have been to 3 new doctors dealing with his allergies.   First was another pediatrician who explained to us that insurance will only cover so many Epi-pens in one year and in Germany they expire in 6 months, not in 1 year...

When the father is away, the kids have fun ... Ilya and Anton are both sick but at least nobody is in the hospital.  (knock on wood)  This is everything I gave out last night and funny enough it has a combination of American, German and British medicines!  The little black box is to check that Anton's oxygen is staying up. I kept both of them home from school today and they are both passed out on the couch right now.  

It makes sense that the longer we stay here the more we get integrated into society and start looking for things that we need/want.   One of those things is looking for more medical related services.   Maybe we were just really lucky in Pittsburgh and I have definitely learned to navigate the complicated systems of support services but Germany takes everything to a whole new level. Apparently (from somewhat of a hearsay) for regular visit, a doctor gets paid only 10 euros so that means that they try to push through as many patients as they can and many times it does feel like we are very incredibly rushed but also many times we are in the waiting room for an hour ... I have no logical explanation ... Several examples that kind of drive me up the wall!   At his 3 year check up, Anton failed regular eye test and we went to see a specialist who said that he definitely needs glasses but wanted to refer him to another specialist.   This second specialist said that h...