On Being Sick In a Foreign Country

This past week, I have been a 70 year-old woman with emphysema, pasty saggy skin, and bad hair. Some sort of throat and sinus disease befell me, and though I would have liked to stay in bed for hours on end, watching movies and napping, several things made this an impossibility. Primarily, the need to make money. Secondarily, the flute player next door. After a few weeks however, my throat thing, whatever is was, has worked itself out and I am now feeling much better, with only the occasional cough here and there. So, see? No need for a doctor at all. I would like to offer this as proof that doctors aren't always necessary.

When it comes to illness in general, I seem to have adopted the family philosophy, which states that unless you are likely to die or become physically incapacitated or deformed from said illness, you stay at home and get over it on your own. That being said, I have learned that the rest of the world doesn't really feel that way. For example, if someone else happens to be in charge of my well-being and I get a bit puny, it's off to the doctor I go. I hate going to the doctor. It is within the top five things I hate. This list also includes horror movies, people who talk about themselves a lot, my digestive system, and squash. So, as you can see, for me, going to the doctor is a last resort.

Thankfully, there isn't anyone in Spain that can make me go to the doctor. I am in charge of my own health, and I get to make my own decisions about how to best heal myself. It helps that I don't have a clue as to how to go to the doctor here anyways. My other foreign-country-doctor experience was quite dramatic, in that it involved a dengue-fever scare and a cup of my urine wrapped up in a Burger King bag so Joaquin couldn't see it. Too much drama for me. I prefer to stay in bed and sweat it out under my own covers. Which is what I am doing right now, because I just developed a righteous case of diarrhea and there is no other place I'd rather be than in my bed. I know I'll feel better as soon as I pull my Guatemalan blanket up to my chin and close my eyes. Let the healing begin.