Sick & tired of being sick & tired

by Jenn


Something my grandma used to say, and that's definitely how I feel today.

Our apartment isn't air-conditioned, which is really beginning to get to me as the dog days of summer set in. We finally caved and bought a fan, which helps. However, it's been so hot all the time that we had typically been sleeping with the window open- the window being basically the whole wall that our bed is pushed up against. Last Sunday night, we slept with it open, and it got cooler and windier than usual, and I woke up with a sore throat. The next day it was still there, and my voice started disappearing. Of course throughout the rest of the week, I was feeling progressively worse. One of Karl's co-teachers even sent some medicines home for me! How nice is that? Unfortunately it didn't do much, so I ended up going to the pharmacy to see if they could recommend any OTC medications. I was nervous about doing this since hardly anyone in our little city speaks any English at all.

Karl and I walk in, and the conversation goes something like this:
K: Hello, do you speak English?
Pharmacist: Ah..... little bit.
Me: I need medicine for my throat. My throat hurts, and my voice...
Pharmacist: Ah... cough?
Me: Yes, coughing, a little bit.
Pharmacist: *turns around and looks at several meds on the shelf, picks one and puts it on the counter* This medicine for throat. It is.. anti-inflammatory. Two pills, three times. *writes down instructions*

He put the box in a bag and tossed in several strawberry-flavored lozenges and we paid a whopping W2,000 for the whole kit. About $1.75. Wow!

I took the medicine and it seemed to help a little, but this cold or laryngitis or whatever it is still hasn't gone away. And the cough is definitely more than "a little bit" now, keeping me up at night. I'm sure my mood hasn't helped since I feel homesick, but I've been trying to be positive and I've been doing yoga almost every day. Who knows, maybe the yoga has been too much for my body this week. I don't know, but I'm worried that I will need to see a doctor if this doesn't go away in a couple of days as it's going on a week now. No insurance yet + probably non-English-speaking doctors = nervous Jenn. I assume that since the pharmacy and vet's offices are so darn cheap that even without insurance it wouldn't be that expensive, but like so many things here, maybe my Western logic won't apply. Cross your fingers this thing goes away.

On the bright (?) side, we've officially completed one month of our sentence adventure. And we had a cheese pizza last night to celebrate. It didn't even have any corn! You know you've found a good pizza place in Korea when they don't put corn on by default!