Tag Archives: health

Feb 02 2012
10 Comments
Anecdotes, Humorous, Three minute read

My Ear Infection: Party on the Inside

bring on the ear infection rock surfing

I have an ear infection. Yeah, I said it. My ear is crawling with infection. Perhaps that’s too much disclosure for the blogosphere. Just because I read the forums on Web MD religiously doesn’t mean I want to discuss everyone’s medical charts, especially my favorite authors on the web.

But now it’s out there. I’ve got an ear infection and it sucks. This is also not a ploy to get people’s pity. I don’t want or need your pity. I’ve already had cookies baked for me against my will and yes, they were inappropriately tasty. You see, I was raised on the plains of Oklahoma, where personal illness is usually treated as a case of sissy-hood. We believe most things can be cured by ignoring the pain and/or rubbing bacon grease onto the affected area. In the case of internal pain, the grease is rubbed onto the lymph nodes so the lymphatic system can carry its healing qualities throughout the rest of the body. It’s a highly developed system.

Unfortunately, bacon grease is hard to come by here in Egypt, so I was unable to pour any into my ear at the beginning of the infection and simply tried to ignore it. The infection proceeded to get increasingly hard to ignore, and I was forced to go to the university clinic, where I was given medicines of dubious names and qualities. I’m now taking a few  pills in a variety of shapes and colors and waiting for everything to go back to normal when I can pretend like this whole “being sick” thing never happened.

I feel like there’s nothing dumber than saying you can’t do something because of an ear infection. To me, it feels equivalent to saying, “Oh, my thumb hurts so I can’t come to your bridal shower,” or “My forehead is bothering me so I won’t be able to make it to the awards banquet,” etc. It’s such a small area of your body, but when it hurts, it hurts in spades. If you have healthy ears, kiss them both right now and be thankful. You could also have someone kiss them for you.

I was laying in bed last night, unable to sleep because of the bright, throbbing pain in my ear. I thought to myself “I am in hell,” as it crackled and sparked, reminding me once again of how awesome my other ear feels. (Again, I don’t want your pity. I’m just trying to use my pathetic example of hardship as blog fodder). Then I realized that I was seeing the pain in my mind’s eye as bright colors and shapes. I think at one point there was a recurring abstractly shaped fish figure that had pink and white stripes and I would see it as I closed my eyes even though I was still awake and wondered  if I would be able to skip school for this.

Now here I am in the morning and I’m not skipping school but I am going to the white desert again. At least I can continue my tradition of being sick before camping trips.

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Jan 10 2012
4 Comments
Humorous, Stories, Three minute read

A Victim of Netflix Mania: Part Two

(continued from Part One. Doctor was just about to interview the patient)

Doctor (addressing the patient for the first time): Hi, I’m Doctor, and this is Nurse. We’re your friends! Can you tell us how you feel?

Me: (drooling, eyes unfocused, legs dangling and kicking) Uhhhhh….duhhhh…doh…..bababa. Lalalalalalala. Meow!

Doctor: Hahahaha! Good meow! Now can you make people words to tell me how head feels? (gestures at head)

Me: (waving right hand around wildly, as if grasping the remote control, appearing frustrated, brow furrowed, looking at doctor with dissatisfaction) TV breakie? (bursts into tears).

Doctor: TV breakie bad bad?

Me: (nodding vigorously, wiping nose on sleeve and then rubbing eyes) Uh huh….I sad sad.

Doctor (holding up dum dums):  You want snacky snack? We have tasty treat!

Me (with irrepressible joy and greed): MINE (grasps for the dum dums, shoves handful in mouth, wrappers and all)

Doctor (to the mother while patient happily chomps on the dum dums and spits out the wrappers and sticks): This is one of the worst cases I’ve seen. Usually they remember how to eat suckers. Instead, she’s become a sucker herself. (high fives Nurse).

Nurse: Nice one.

Mother: What’s happened to her?

Doctor: Ma’am, your daughter’s once healthy brain has turned into the equivalent of high quality dog food. One night of reckless Netflix usage has destroyed years of education, a college degree, and any semblance of social skills. Only electronic stimuli and pure sugar can get the neurons firing now. This is by far the worst case of Netflix mania that I’ve ever seen.

Nurse (in awe): whoa…..

Mother: Is there a cure?

Doctor: There’s no guaranteed way of reversing the damage. She may be left handicapped for the rest of her life, sitting in her own filth, clutching a jar of gummy bears as she watches progressively worse television year after year. Friends who once knew her will stop calling, and the family will grow weary of wiping the drool off her cheeks or closing her eyelids for her to sleep. The added tension will cause the family to fray, everyone’s temper growing a little shorter with the passing of the years, sharp words digging into each other’s insecurities. Friends will find excuses to stop coming over, and those who can get away, will.

Mother: (gasp!)

Doctor: But it doesn’t have to be this way. If there’s any hope for your daughter, it lies with you and your family. You will be vigilant, ruthless. You must not let her watch television for a month and monitor her constantly. During this time, you will force her to read and engage in conversation with humans. Begin by reading aloud to her and give her treats if she does it herself. Do not let her near a computer; she will only try to watch television. When she finally begins to speak again, she will attempt to quote things she heard on television. She must not be allowed to do this: you will make her brain revive the lost synapses. I’m also going to prescribe some logic puzzles for her to complete daily. It will be grueling, but in the end, you might have a functioning daughter instead of this pathetic example of lost potential.

Mother: But…what if…

Doctor: THERE ARE NO WHAT IFS. This is your daughter’s last chance. You, maam, are her only hope, and a sorry one at that. Only you, your family, your friends, and your medical practitioner-that’s me-can prevent heartbreaking failure. I have not thought of a plan B. Unless you want to start buying Depends in bulk, you need to get your mind together so you can save her’s. Do you understand me?

Mother: I….

Doctor: DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!

Mother: Yes sir!

Doctor: Nurse, do you understand me?

Nurse: Yes, sir!

Mother (to Nurse and Doctor): Do you understand me?

Everyone, except for me: YES SIR!

Mother: Let’s do it! (high fives all around)

Me: Meow.

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Oct 19 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Stories, Two minute read

My Boring Life part 27: Hit by a Car

These are cars. Something like one of them hit me.

The first thing I thought after the car hit me was that the experience would make a great blog post, not realizing at the time how boring stories about accidental car-human interactions could be.  I found out later on that even thinking about what had happened was incredibly tedious, let alone telling the story to other people. Despite my initial hope, a non-fatal or non-injury car accident seems as normal as snack time at soccer practice.

The whole ordeal felt as uninteresting as a conversation with a drive-thru window employee: I and my colleague were walking in the street along with the rest of Cairo. He asks me how I exercise. I tell him I don’t. The car hits me from behind at a fairly slow pace, ramming roughly into my left side. My colleague accidentally gropes me as he yanks me out of the way. I let off a stream of unsavory speech and pronounce fanatical threats (at the car, not him). And then I descend into the metro station and meet a nice family from Kansas before heading home, right as rain.

Not only is the story itself banal, but it’s difficult for people to comprehend it since oftentimes (as in the two times I’ve told people), there is no shared background with regard to close encounters of the vehicular kind. For example, when you’re telling a story about a time you got a sandwich, there is a ready-made paradigm for understanding the experience. It’s likely your audience has a background in sandwich eating and can ask informed questions like: What kind of sandwich did you get? How much did it cost? Was it good? And then they might make a statement like, “Ooo…that sounds good. I should try that sometime.”

However, when you tell someone you were hit by a car, the same lexicon of understanding just does not exist. Though people want to care, they simply don’t. This is especially true if you weren’t hurt. The first question is “Are you okay?” and if you the answer is yes, then they’ve likely lost what little interest they were feigning in the first place. They might ask, “How did it happen?” but if you’re okay, than it’s probably a boring story anyways and so you’ll get a statement indicating you were slightly in the wrong, like “Be careful!” Also, the idea the person they’re talking to was in such a foreign situation and could have either been maimed or killed only hours earlier is weird and causes uncomfortable thinking about death and the meaning of life. Therefore, for everyone’s sake, it’s best to stick to talking about things people understand, like food, love, and laughter. Car accidents should be discussed only when involving circus animals or family members you thought were dead.

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Oct 06 2011
4 Comments
Anecdotes, The Cairo Metro, Two minute read

I Am the Shwarma

200 people fit in here

I thought I had beaten the topic of the Cairo metro to death, that all the humidity, sweat, inexplicable haze, and involuntary contact with strangers had been discussed to its furthest extent. But I was wrong, pathetically wrong, and today I touched, tasted, smelled, and saw the depth of my ignorance.

Though I did not think it was physically possible, metro use has increased due to strikes on other forms of public transportation. Practically, this means the metro cars turn into a more treacherous, sweaty, place than they have been. People and children under 4 feet tall stand a good chance of suffocating should they dare to ride.

This morning, the women’s metro car rolls up, and it is already stuffed to the gills. I can almost see a puff of steam emerge as the doors open and a few fight their way off the train, leaving just under enough space for me. I and a few others shove our way on, our body masses absorbed into a greater entity created out of metro riders like a giant shwarma leg. A woman had to suck in her stomach in order for the door to close, and I thought to myself, “the fate of this entire train just depended upon the extra 3 inches of that woman’s newly concave stomach. Lord help us.”

For the next 6 minutes, I was tossed about like a baby at a potluck. Though I wasn’t holding onto anything, it didn’t matter since it was impossible to move independently of the nest of people I was firmly snuggled into. As a result, I was pushed against my will several times into a woman standing next to the door. I thought she realized I was powerless in the matter, but finally, at the stop where we and 80 percent of the train were exiting, she said, “Why are you pushing me?! I swear I’m getting off!”

Had I the language skills, I wish I could have cooed, “Yes, friend. I am pushing you because I alone out of the countless women here in the car can move of my own free will and I have decided to use this power to pester you, oh chosen one. I am glad you are ignoring the kinetic thread of female bodies behind me that might transfer energy and placed blame directly on me for your discomfort because I am, in fact, completely responsible. I am also malicious and worthy of your hatred.”

The metro doors open at Sadat and “plop!” a mass of women is spurted out onto the platform. Someone hits me in the back, and I’m not sure whether it was on purpose or whether they had temporarily lost control of their arm because of metro fever. As I was ascending the escalator  I thought to myself, “I’ve got to blog about this.”

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Sep 22 2011
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Fiction, Two minute read

The Hospital: Come Sick, Leave Sick and Scarred

I think the hospital is in this picture. I almost died getting there.

(partially based on true stories)

Friend: My ears are still shot so I went to the clinic again today but they told me I need to go to the hospital. They have no idea what’s wrong.

Me: Ooo…that’s not great news. I hear Egyptian hospitals are horrendous. Like really awful places. Like I would probably choose to suffer soul-rending pain just in order to avoid stepping inside one of those hellholes.

Friend: (hesitating) Well there’s nothing else I can do…the clinic at the university said they’ve done everything they can for me. The medicine they prescribed hasn’t worked and I can’t hear a thing. Maybe I’ll at least get some better ear drops from the hospital.

Me: (chuckling) The hospital! The only thing they’ll get from them is a rash and a ticket to the insane asylum!

Friend: (confused) I’m going today after class…

Me: (interrupting) So my boss told me about when he went to a public hospital because his employee’s  foot was pierced by an piece of rebar in a freak accident. Just poked right through like a pencil through paper. Pop! Blood gushing out everywhere, really gruesome stuff.

Friend: (concerned) Ewww…. So what was the hospital like?

Me: Well I’ll tell you what happened. They had no idea how bad their situation was until they saw the place that was supposed to treat them:  it was completely disorganized and crowded beyond all reason with desperate, sick people that had been camping out for days just to get into the ER. I can only imagine the haze from the bacteria growing in the air itself.

Friend: Did they get in?

Me: No! They had to go somewhere else, a “private” hospital where they still had to bribe their way in. And you won’t believe this: they had to pay just to use the elevator, even though the guy’s foot was literally a river of blood. Literally, a river of blood! And then they get to the hospital room and find all manner of wailing and chaos going on around them, blood on the walls, doctors frantically pouring liquid after liquid on the wound, which of course does nothing at all. It all seemed like a freak comedy act.

Friend: Which hospital was this?

Me: (ignoring the question) At last a real doctor comes along and sticks his finger right in the wound and wiggles it around while my boss’s employee is screaming in pain. Finally, my boss gets the doctor to quit it and they stitch they guy up with a dirty needle and some dental floss and then send him on his way. Last I heard, he’d lost all feeling in his foot along with 2 toes due to an infection he likely caught at the hospital itself. He’ll probably be subscribing to Prosthetic Fashions Weekly pretty soon! Hahaha!

Friend: …..

Me: But you’re not going to a public hospital, so I’m sure your case will be different. Catch ya later!

Friend: (sighs deeply, then heads to class)

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