In which Rebekah has her Visite Médicale

If you've been reading this blog for long enough, you probably know this already. Otherwise, here's a brief synopsis of what one needs to do to be a resident in France for longer than 3 months or so. First, one needs a visa. There are several different long stay visas available, depending on whether or not you have a job in France and on which type of job it is. Since Blaise is here as a researcher, we are all here on scientist visas (scientist family visas in the case of the kids and I). In order to get these visas, Blaise and I had to fly to Chicago and visit the French consulate last spring, armed with various pieces of paperwork and, of course, our credit card since the visas are expensive.

The visas, however, only entitle us to remain in France for 3 months from the date of entry. In order to remain in France for longer we need something called a titre de séjour or carte de séjour which is essentially a residency card. In order to begin the process for obtaining these cards, Blaise and I went to the sous-préfecture back in August, where we again submitted lots of paperwork and filled out lots of forms and where, once they had gone through all our papers, we were given pieces of paper with our photographs to indicate that we had begun the process of obtaining our titres de séjour. We were also told that we would be receiving a letter in the mail sometime in the next 4-6 weeks scheduling us for a medical visit, and that once that visit was over we would be given our actual titres de séjour.

Our temporary papers were only good for 3 months, so when we didn't yet have our cartes de séjour at the beginning of November, we headed back to the sous-préfecture, where we were given new temporary paperwork. Blaise had his medical visit at the end of November, and received his titre de séjour around Christmas. I went back to the sous préfecture at the beginning of February for another set of temporary paperwork. Then, finally, I got my letter telling my to show up for my medical visit on the first of March.

I needed to be at the OFII (Office Français de l'Iimmigration et de l'Integration) at 8:30 Monday morning. Step one was figuring out how to get there. Evidently the fastest option was to take the RER A to Vincennes, then switch to a train going back out the A line on the other branch line. (The RERs all branch outside of Paris. The A has 2 branches to the east (our) side and 3 branches to the west side.) I would have to ride that most of the way to the end of the line, then take a 15 minute bus ride, and finally walk a bit. The whole process would take about 75 minutes.

I left our apartment Monday morning at about 7:10, stopped at the ticket machines to buy a Mobilus (daily all you can ride pass) for the relevant zones, and headed down to a packed train platform. It appeared that several trains had gotten cancelled or delayed since the A typically runs every 2-3 minutes during rush hour, and there wasn't a train coming in for another 10 minutes. Somehow I managed to shoehorn my way onto that train. I didn't have anything to hold onto, but that didn't matter since I couldn't possibly have fallen over anyway--there was nowhere to fall. The transfer at Vincennes went without incident, as did the transfer to the bus at the end. I found the building without incident and waited to be called. Then the "fun" started.

When Blaise had his visite médicale it was just a brief checkup, evidently because he is employed in France. For those of us who are unemployed things are a bit more complex. First they led a group of us to a big room and said a bunch of stuff to us in rather rapid-fire French. I managed to catch the jist of what was going on, which was that we should be prepared to spend a good long time that morning, and a few more days as well. Then we all got to watch a movie on being French (in French, of course).

After the movie, we were called out individually to meet with auditors, whose job was to schedule us for a couple of classes/workshops and to determine what our level of French fluency was. So I am now scheduled for a full day class on civic life in France on April 13 (complicated by the fact that Blaise is leading a full day workshop in Paris on that day--anyone want to fly out to Paris and take care of getting kids to and from school for me?). She wanted to schedule me for another full day class on April 30th, but we'll be out of town so I'm currently on the waiting list for the following English language session, whenever that is. I somehow managed to convince her (aided by the fact that we're permanently leaving France in 5 months) that I spoke good enough French so that I didn't need to take courses in French (which would have been free, but nearly impossible to schedule).

By then it was nearly 11:00 and time for the actual medical visit part of the day. First, I met with a nurse who weighed and measured me and checked to make sure that my glasses were sufficiently strong. That was relatively quick and straightforward. Next, I went downstairs and out into the parking lot where I waited in a 45 minute line for the opportunity to go into a trailer and have a chest x-ray. Fortunately it was reasonably nice out. Eventually I got to go into the trailer and strip to the waist so they could take the x-ray, then redress and wait for the technician to hand me the envelope with the film in it to bring up to the doctor.

After another 30 minute wait to see a doctor, I got called in to one of the offices, where I got to take off my shirt again. He checked my mouth to see if I needed a referral to a dentist (evidently not), took my blood pressure (normal), listened to my heart and lungs (good), felt my abdomen, and decided that I needed to see my GP for a referral for an ultrasound of my stomach. Evidently it isn't normal to be able to feel one's pulse in one's stomach, though it generally isn't anything serious. In any case, I'm seeing a doctor today and I expect that he will send me for an ultrasound. Hopefully that will show that there isn't anything actually wrong and that will be the end of that. (I've known about this for years but never thought anything of it, and no doctor I've seen in the US has ever said anything about it either. I'm not yet sure whether that's incompetence on their parts or an overabundance of caution here. We'll see what the ultrasound turns up.)

Then he signed the papers to show that I'd passed the medical exam, and I got to hunt for someone to stamp them with the date. (Not easy because it was lunch time, and most of the people in the building were gone.) Finally, around 12:30 I managed to head out to the bus stop and begin the trip home. After lunch, Cherry and I went to the sous-préfecture to drop off a photocopy of my medical visit paperwork and to hopefully increase the speed with which I get my residency card. (Which will make a very nice souvenir, since I won't have it for very long before we leave the country.)

Edited to add: I saw the doctor this morning, and he thought that I needn't worry. However, in order to keep the powers that be in the administration happy, he's sending me for an ultrasound. Hopefully the worst news will be that I'm not allowed to eat or drink (or smoke, though that's not an issue) before the ultrasound on Tuesday morning.