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newfound empathy for recipients of smallpox blankets

i wanted to only write entries here that paint my life in korea in a positive light, but i must be honest....

i've been sick for weeks. my poor immune system has not been equal to the challenge of working (in what might as well be a petri dish) teaching children in a country for which i've no developed antibodies. first i got a wimpy cold (postnasal drip, etc...), which, when i felt i was on the mend, was replaced immediately by a slightly more potent differently nuanced virus. then i think i got something else on top of that. this phlegmtastic situation has meant several weekends spent prostrate on the couch watching tv rather than exploring korea and having adventures. this means a harrowing experience at the local clinic where the dr. doesn't speak english and i let them hook me up to an iv full of god-knows-what (which my korean co-worker dubbed a "nutrition shot").

oh yes, i lay in a funky bed in a tiny room with a coughing older woman as my teammate in the new olympic sport "synchronized iv-drip recipient hacking-fest". actually, to be honest, she had an entirely different drip bag than i did--hers was fluorescent yellow--and she was in the room before i arrived, thus blowing our chances for true syncronization. a few different syringes of mysterious fluids were directly squirted into my iv line prior to the drip being hooked up. i cringed with each one, wondering in vain (no pun intended) what the hell was now lacing my bloodstream. then when the drip was attached i watched with horror--true horror--as a bunch of air bubbles in the tube entered my body. "good god!!!" i screamed internally "i am going to die in korea of shoddy iv-technicianship!" i lay there, rigid with fear waiting for my heart to stop. seconds passed as my heart beat on keeping time, then minutes. the suspense was gruesome and i really truly thought my death was imminent. i'm not exaggerating. worst of all i could not communicate anything about my plight to the woman in the bed next to me, nor to the nurse (who wasn't around at this point anyway). after about a 1/2 hour passed, i started to think perhaps my heart was extraordinary and i would be ok. but i was preoccupied with the need to go home and google this subject and know for certain if i could expect some eventual fallout. (i found out later via google search results that it would take a much larger volume of air than the bubbles present in my iv line to stop a heart--thank god!!) i spent an hour and a half in that bed cursing myself and the korean healthcare system. i lay there obsessively watching the tide mark in the drip bag gradually lower until there was no fluid left. it ocurred to me that this was like the sick person's version of the hourglass.

anyhow, this chronic physical sickness has spawned mental homesickness of epic proportions. the heady novelty of living in a country where i do not speak the language and where most people do not speak mine has worn off and been replaced with a lingering feeling of powerlessness.

to treat my upper respiratory infection for the past 5 days i have been eating 9 raw cloves of garlic a day--spread out in 3 doses. i reek, i can feel how strong my breath is--my saliva could likely burn a hole through metal. but the color of the phlegm in my lungs has transitioned in the last day from green to clear, so i think garlic is really a viable cure for bronchitis. oh, also, i've been on a mostly raw-foods diet of fruit and veggies and nuts, which i think has been very helpful.

btw, of course the clinic dr. prescribed me a cocktail of 5 pills (unlabeled, not in bottles but sealed as before in a string of little individual dose vellum envelopes) including antibiotics, and i am no christian scientist, don't get me wrong, but i didn't want to take the antibiotics i was given because i'd just finished a course of them for my facial scrapes less-than a month ago, and those messed my stomach up royally. also, they over-prescribe antibiotics here and i didn't want my body to develop further problems from over-use--i wanted my immune system to fight this fight and grow stronger. not to mention the fact that the other 4 pills in the mix i was given were unnecessary and possibly harmful in my opinion. ugh.

i think my game plan for the rest of my time here will be to ingest raw garlic on a daily basis (less than 9 cloves, however). if my students mind the smell, alls the better as it will keep them from breathing their germs so closely into my face.

i have work tomorrow and then the rest of the week off for the korean thanksgiving holiday. if i am healthy enough, i am planning to go and stay at a buddhist temple for 3 nights through this temple stay program. i really truly hope i am better, otherwise i'll be watching more 'knight rider' episodes, thus exceeding the recommended monthly allowance for any human being...

before = after