Tuesday 31 July 2007

Realization of the Day:

It sucks to be sick in a foreign country without minions.

Okay, not minions, but someone to go get ginger ale and advil. I woke up last night with a really awful sore throat and a fever, complete with aches and pains. Me thinks I have the flu. So what do I do? I call Kevin and my dad and mom so I can whine about my sorry state. I haven't cried about missing anyone since I got here, but last night, as I hoped I wouldn't have to bust out my health insurance cards at foreign urgent care centers, I was sniffling a lot.

I know it's 'just England' and I don't have to mime my maladies to a doctor that doesn't speak my language, but it takes a good fifteen minutes of staring at a map to figure out how to get to a bookstore that's down the street, so finding some kind of doctor wasn't high on my list of things I wanted to do whilst I was here. (Oh, and just as an example of how things are different here: yeast infections. (close your eyes, boys.) If you go to a pharmacist and tell him/her that you have a yeast infection, they will think you have an STD. One must say they need medication for...wait for it... thrush instead. What did a hapless bird do to these people?)

I'm very glad that I decided to buy a can of rice pudding, since it was the perfect thing for my throat along with some tasty ginger beer. (See, I just use being sick as a way to try new foods!) So I've slept all day; hopefully I'll make it to work tomorrow since my boss comes back from her 2-week holiday and I want to make sure that I'm there when she gets in.

1 comment:

medieval woman said...

Ugh - I hope you feel better soon! And "thrush"? That sounds worse than yeast infection (which is, after all, what it is!). You can't get the meds for that in Holland without going to a doctor to get a prescription (no over the counter Monistat). This happened to me once and my mom had to send the stuff two-day mail from the States (no walk-in clinics it seems). She said it was really awful filling out the customs form - and it wasn't too fun sigining for it either! :)

Maybe too much info - sorry! :)