Travel-Sick
Being sick is never fun but there is nothing
worse then being sick away from home. You may think I am using this as a figure
of speech but I genuinely believe that being really sick in an unfamiliar
environment is a highly traumatising experience, for everyone involved. Just think of all the things that are
important to you when your sick: a plentiful supply of ready-meals, constant
repeats of Top Gear on Dave TV, free healthcare curtsy of the NHS and most
important a toilet in close proximity (that can flush); all these things are
not guaranteed when you travel.
Thankfully I have been here long enough to have
found myself lodgings with a sanitary toilet and have a stack of copied DVDs
ready to be watched (half of which don’t work but that’s beside the point).
With my “sick in Vietnam” survival kit I thought I was ready for anything,
however, I underestimated just how much uncertainty plays into how sick you
feel. When last Monday I started getting stomach cramps it didn’t worry me, “I
must have just eating something off” I told myself. Over the following days I
too convinced myself that the constant fatigue, head spinning and even the
mysterious blue bruise on my right arm were all just a coincidence and would
soon go away. It wasn’t until Friday afternoon when aching bones was added to the symptoms that I began to worry.
I struggled into work on Saturday morning and
found myself sat in a tiny non-air-conditioned room giving one-to-one speaking
tests to six year olds. As the morning progressed I found myself becoming less
bothered about the addition of “s” to verbs in the third person and more
concerned about getting through the two hours without projectile vomiting all
over my students. If I had indeed died in that room while doing the test I have
no doubt that the student would have diligently sat there waiting for the next
question until someone discovered my cold stiff body.
I spend the rest of Saturday lying in my own
misery, comforted only by fifteen back-to-back episodes of Lost. Come Sunday
morning I felt just as bad and decided a visit to a doctor was necessary. While
I didn’t want to spend too much money the though of being completely lost in
translation didn’t appeal, so I went to an international health clinic and
prepared myself to part with some serious Dong.
As I lay on the examination bed describing my
symptoms to the doctor I could see his eyebrows getting higher and higher with alarm
but it was not until the mention of a “mysterious blue bruise on right arm”
that he grabbed a facemask and forced it on me. They then set about poring liquids into me with one tube and
extracting blood with another.
I think the alarm bells were ringing because a
lot of the symptoms I described were similar to that of Swine Flu. I am convinced
that all the publicised illnesses start off with the same symptoms (vomiting,
headaches, stiffness etc..), no doubt when Mutton Meningitis breaks out we will
also be warned to watch for these seemingly universal symptoms.
After being drained of blood and pumped with
water the doctors demanded I secrete numerous bodily liquids into an array of
pots which all had my name nearly printed on them. After this ordeal I lay on
the hard surgery bed waiting to be prescribed with some deadly disease. It was
almost disappointing to be told that they couldn’t find anything wrong with me
and I should go home and rest, but of course, not before I paid them in full
for every test they had run. I am now a firm believer in the NHS.
