Germans are crazy

It was around this time last year that I went to Germany searching for an alternative cure to surgery. After spending a few months juggling the opinions of three of America’s top doctors and seven options for surgery I decided that wasn’t a big enough challenge for me; I wanted MORE conflicting opinions to choose from. At the same time, everyone kept telling me, “Oh Germany is where it’s at in cancer treatments, go to Germany, they’re way ahead of the US.” So I thought, “Okay, yeah, I’ll try Germany, I mean that makes sense, they are known for their…precision engineering.”

So I put that on my Tumor To Do List one week: Call Germany. I like that it was so illusive to me, it involved the whole country:
Me: “Yes, hello, Germany, can you save me?”
Germany: “Oh, Yah.”
Me: “Oh, good.”

I received donated frequent flyer miles from B’s uncle and hopped a plane—a SUPER nice Lufthansa business class plane: totally awesome—to Münster, Germany. I stayed for free with a friend of friend’s acquaintance’s ex-land-lady. She let me use this adorable bike and every day I wasn’t meeting with doctors, I spent riding around the cobblestone streets of the city visiting the beautiful churches and gardens. I felt like I was in a storybook, minus the finding-a-cure-for-cancer bit.

It was my first trip to Europe (I love that I haven’t been to Paris or Rome, but I’ve hit the quaint university town of Münster!), and I went alone. It was a wonderful trip (I was independent! I could ride a bike! It was pretty!).

So here’s my Germany report:
Report #1: The seats on Lufthansa’s business class plane make you feel like you’re in your own private spaceship. After the 8-hour flight, I’m pretty sure I was the only one on the plane who didn’t want to get off. I wanted to stay in my cushy pod with the free movies, wine, and chocolate.

Report #2: German riesling: delicious.

Report #3: The doctors’ opinions:
The doctor I went to see for an alternative therapy immediately told me he couldn’t help me (WHY couldn’t he have told me this over the phone?!) and that I should see a surgeon he highly recommended at the university clinic (or klinik) in town.

It was difficult to understand Dr. Winkelmann through his accent, but from what I gathered, he recommended a fibular graft, which would have involved taking my right fibula--the skinny bone in the back of the calf--and putting it in the place of my left femur. He assured me, “Yah, you don’t need zee WHOLE fibula, you only need zee top and bottom centimeter of zee fibula.” And then all of his assistants started intently bobbing their heads in agreement like, “Yah, yah, not zee WHOLE fibula.” That’s when I looked around to see if I was missing something and thought, Really? Because I seem to have been enjoying my fibula just fine these past 28 years, right where it is…in this leg, where it’s healthy and not needing to be cut open.

I mean, I had flown to Germany to see if I could avoid cutting open one leg, only to learn they wanted to cut open both?! I went home feeling a lot more patriotic. (Sigh) The lesson?: Germans are crazy.