Today, I'm a sick puppy.
Oh, it's nothing life-threatening, just a cold that kept me all night with a cough, and left me sad and pathetic (see dramatization). My head's been soaking in a steam bath and I'm rockin' the latest in yoga pant/neck scarf/dirty ponytail chic. I sound like Gary Busey, and feel like I've been hit by a dump truck, which ironically, is probably how Gary Busey also feels most days.
I owe you a much better post than this one, but NaBloPoMo stops for no man or virus (bacteria? Heavens, it has been so long since college Biology). So, let me at least tell you what I've learned from my first real illness in Australia.
Being sick sucks anywhere you live. It might suck a smidge less in a place with a 24 hour Walgreens where you can get cough medicine to knock you out in the middle of the night. It also might suck a bit less in a place where the medicine is not kept behind the pharmacists counter and you have no control over picking it out yourself (explain your symptoms to the chemist and *boom* there's your remedy. "$25, please."). Finally, it might suck less in a place where all those damn cockatoos screeching murderous revenge outside were not driving you bloody insane.
But, it would still suck.
It also sucks to be sick in a one-bedroom apartment in Sarasota, FL where you live all by yourself and have to go to Whole Foods in your sweats and no makeup, box of Kleenex in hand, for your own darn chicken noodle soup.
One thing that does not suck about being sick in Australia: Having a Partner-in-Crime to make me tea with as many scoops of honey as I ask for, hug me and kiss me on the forehead, tell me "my poor baby," and not to worry about keeping him up all night with my coughing.
I think, as an expat, it is hard for me to know when I've made a new home. A lot of the time, it still feels like a long vacation because everything is still new and we don't have deep roots here, yet. But today, of all the places I could be sick, I pick here. With my husband. In my home. In Australia. Cockatoos and all.
Get outta my head! Ha ha, I'm suffering with a head/chest thing going on, and I hate that there's no Advil Cold and Sinus (and on that note, Pepto Bismol). I got some Benadryl cough/cold medicine, and it seems to be working. God I hope you get your non-Gary Busey voice back very, very soon!
ReplyDeleteHed hed down under
The "Gary Busey" part cracks me up! Sorry you're under the weather. When I've lived in other countries, I feel so much more vulnerable when I get sick. In Italy, for instance, I knew what meds I needed, but had no clue what they were called in Italian. First thing I looked up when I was well, I tell ya!
ReplyDeleteGlad you're being pampered, though. Like those MasterCard ads say, that's priceless!
~Tui
Thanks for the sympathy, ladies! The good news is that Partner-in-Crime came back from the pharmacy with these amazing eucalyptus lozenges that I never would have picked out myself. They're a wonder drug (wonder collection of herbs, actually)! And, I've moved from Gary Busey to Kathleen Turner, so that's progress in the right direction.
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