I'm pretty sure all I have is a cold, though it's one of the worse ones I've had in awhile. I could've asked my roommate for the location of a doctor, or I could have taken the bus to one of the hopsitals, but I have more than enough memories of Israeli hospitals, and I don't want to repeat the experience.
I have absolutely horrible allergies. Whenever the weather changes, it can get bad enough to make me sick. I was basically sick for all of April. Not contagious sick, but uncomfortable. I stopped wearing my contacts because they made my eyes burn.
But the worst of it is the animal allergies. In kindergarden, my class had a pet rabbit. I think his name was magic related...Hocus Pocus, maybe. I wasn't allowed to pet him. All of the other kids wold crowd around the rabbit, and I had to stay back. Even today, my aunt has guinea pigs and I need to dose myself up on medicine before I enter her house.
The animal bit is the hardest because I come from a family that likes animals more than people. My dad grew up in a tiny apartment in Chicago (first in Austin, which was and still is a really bad neighborhood, and then West Rogers Park), in a house filled with different small animals (no dogs, because my Nana knew she would be the one who would end up taking care of them. My mom grew up in a rural town in Michigan, and she had all sorts of animals. She even had a pony at one point, a beast grey with white speckles named Choo Choo who had a mean streak. (Her grandma won him in a lottery.) Because of my allergies (and, to a slightly lesser extent, my parents'), we were limited in the kinds of animals we could bring into the house. Dogs used to make my eyes itch and my nose run, but I got over that with sheet willpower.
When I was younger, maybe in middle school, my mom took me to the allergist. They did the test where they prick you with different things, and my parents bought an air purifier for my room. Freshman year, I told my roommates that they wouldn't be able to put on perfume or smelly things in the room, because it would set off my allergies. At one point someone, I forget who, was using some sort of hair care product that smelled and I had a coughing and sneezing attack that proved that I wasn't kidding.
Anyways, I get allergy-related colds, but they rarely happen in the summer, which of course made me afraid that I had swine flu. After staying up all of Thursday night, I went to the pharmacy on Friday morning. I waited in line and told one of the people at the desk that I needed sudaphed. She told me I needed to speak to the pharmacist. I was waiting in line with a pack of expensive cough drops when I saw that there was a much cheaper bag of them near the register. I quickly went to return the ones I had to the shelf, and I saw that an old woman had taken my place. She was talking to the pharmacist, who was trying to explain that I was first in line, not her.
After mentally cursing out old people (the woman eventually moved), I placed my order. The pharmacist got the pills and opened the box, removing some of the extras and explaining that according to a U.S. law, they were only allowed to sell me 12 pills per day. I smiled and said I understood, mentally cursing the speed freaks who were prolonging my purchase, leaving me to choke on my own phlegm.
Pills and cough drops in my possession, I went next door to the grocery store. Grocery shopping in Israel is an experience, because the packaging is all in Hebrew (or other languages...Russian, German, etc.), so I need to closely read things or guess. I finally found boxes of powdered chicken broth and frozen kreplach (balls of dough with ground beef inside...perfect sick food!), and also got lox (I couldn't resist), brie (I blame Amital and her Frenchness), my favorite cereal, and a frozen salmon fillet, for when the sickness is gone (or for tomorrow, when I finish the kreplach). I paid and went home.
The food was magical. As soon as I heated up the water in the koomkoom (those kettles you plug into the wall and pour water into and it boils...kam means to get up or rise, and many Hebrew words are combinations of small two-letter words such as this) and made my tea (which a former roommate had left behind) and soup, I felt mentally better, relieved of the worry that I have swine flu (though I'm still not getting tested). Since then, I have sequestered myself in my room, so I don't infect my roommate. I've left to get more tea and soup (I swear, I am so well hydrated, it's not even funny) and to take my allergy medicine, occasionally entering into benadryl-induced slumber.
I almost never use benadryl. Actually, I only use it when I have allergy-related issues, since that's what it is for. I'm a really light sleeper, and I love the drug-induced sleeping that benadryl gives me. Normally, I wake up every couple of hours, but with benadryl, I can sleep for 6 hours straight. It's such a good feeling that it takes a small amount of restraint to not use the pills more often. But I don't, mainly because I'm afraid that they won't be as effective if I take them all the time.
I'm hoping that I'll feel well enough tomorrow morning to go to my internship. I only have 4 more days left. Also, I can bring a mug and bowl and make my tea and soup there...I just don't want to infect people.
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