Okay, so remember when I went to the hospital two weeks ago
for my cough/congestion? Well I sure do. The doctor took two glances
at me and prescribed me a bajillion medications…I’m not exactly how he
concluded what was wrong with me. The only question I remember him asking was “Do
you eat spicy food?” That’s cute; he thought my nose was running because I was
eating spicy food.
Nevertheless, I took his advice and threw back a bunch of
pills everyday for a week or two. The medication didn’t work – it only made me
extremely tired. I decided to go to the doctor again when I went home to the
States. The only problem is that I continued to blow my nose dozens and dozens
of times each day, and I began to fear that my head would literally explode. Also,
when I coughed people would look at me like I had swine flu or something. “Go
to the hospital!” my teammates would urge me. “I already did!” was my response.
Well, the congestion became so severe that it clogged up my
ears and gave me headaches, and my cough was scaring away small children, so I
finally caved and went to the hospital. Again.
Mel came with me, and true to World Race style we hitchhiked
on the way there. “Are you okay? Why do you have to go to the hospital?” our
driver asked us. Mel told her that I was sick. I wanted to share my theory with
her about my head exploding; instead I smiled and shrugged my shoulders when
she glanced at me in the review mirror. Sometimes my filter works.
After being dropped off at the hospital and filling out all
the paperwork we made our way to see the ear/nose/throat specialist. He asked
me a few questions (none of which had to do with spicy food) and then used a
device that worked as a camera to look up my ears, nose and throat (who
would’ve thought?) He talked a lot about the inflammation of my sinuses –
though whenever he said inflammation I thought he was saying “information” – it
left me quite confused and amused.
He then stuck q-tips up my nose. Like, UP my nose. He left
them there for a little while, and I have to admit I was starting to feel a bit
too much like a walrus by the time he took them out.
After that he used this long, metal device to SUCK the snot
out of my nose. Kind of like that thing they use at the dentist to suck up all
the water in your mouth, you know? Yeah, except this was up my nose. My doctor
was being super nice and gentle, but the whole long metal thing shoved up my
nose just freaked me out and was uncomfortable and so maybe I started to cry a
little bit, okay?
FINALLY it was over and he turned my chair back around to
face Mel. When she saw the tears streaming down my cheeks, she shook her head
sympathetically and said, “That’s snot fun.”
Now, if you know anything about Mel, you know that she is
one of the punniest people around. I never knew puns could be so funny until I
met her. And in this moment, when my nose had just been violated in at least
six different ways, a pun was exactly what I needed.
But it didn’t stop with that one.
As we were walking out of the doctor’s office, she looked at
me and said, “Really, that sucked.” I
laughed. “But who knows, maybe it
will make everything better in the end.” Knows. Nose. Get it? Yeah, she’s good.
So, I was prescribed a bajillion more medications (hopefully
the right ones this time). When Mel and I were buying them at the pharmacy, we
asked for the generic Thai brand instead of the more expensive brand, duh. We
noticed that the name brand had more pills than the generic Thai brand. “Why is
that?” we asked. “Ohhh. Because I think Europeans are big [translation: fat].
Asians don’t need as many pills,” was our response. We loved that. (P.S. I
bought the Thai brand – I may be a sizeable European, but it was half the
price…can you blame a sista?)
Alas, I’ve lived through yet another day on the World Race –
complete with sickness and hitchhiking and confusion and teammates and cultural
differences – I sure am going to miss all this.
