I blame Korea...

for this freak strain of cold that I have. I don't remember ever being this sick for this long and not being in the hospital.

It started on Tuesday night with a fever. I felt better Wednesday so I went to work, which was a mistake because I almost died as did a number of my students. I had a fever all day and all night of what I'm sure was 110F or so but I can be sure since I didn't have a thermometer.

I called in sick on Thursday and went to the doctor. I was convinced he was going to diagnose me with some freak strain of the flu, (perhaps the avian variety), since it couldn't possibly be the normal one because I had been vaccinated against it back in October. But alas no, he called it a cold and sent me on my way. I had my prescription filled for some over the counter Tylenol, and something for the cough and runny nose. So keep in mind it is now Thursday. I haven't eaten since Tuesday afternoon and I just recently found that I could drink water if it was allowed to warm up after sitting on my floor for a while. The remainder of Thursday is spent in bed.

On Friday I went to work because I used up my last sick day and because we have a field trip to the natural history museum and I wanted to see some dinosaurs. The day passed without major event and I don't feel too terribly although I do my best to look it. My eyes are dark and sunken, my skin pale and clammy and my hair, well...you know. All of my Korean co-workers tell me how terrible I looked all day, how sick and how tired I must feel. Despite their concern, not a one of them offers me any relief by covering one of my nine classes that day. Just as I leave the building that, by now familiar feeling of coldness creeps into my bones indicating the onset of yet another fever. So I cancelled my trip to the DMZ the following morning and sent for a thermometer. 101.8 F, not life threatening but a fever nonetheless. Friday night was record breaking bad. I couldn't sleep. At first it was because I'd slept too much after work so I was bored and there was nothing on t.v. I would lay down and close my eyes and drift off only to wake up, check the clock and realize it was only twenty minutes later. Later that early morning I started to notice pain in both of my ears. I managed to go back to sleep only to wake up about an hour later with a crushing pressure on both sides of my head that I thought for sure would end me. After writhing in pain for a few hours I did two of the next logical things. The first being that I conducted online research to corroborate my notions that I had a double ear infection. Sure enough, all of the articles basically said the same things. Ear pain often indicated an ear infection and was even more likely if the person also has a cold. It being 6:00am at this point I did the next most logical thing, which was to try to call my mommy seeing as it was 11:00pm in Germany. I picked up my calling card and dialed the number just to find out that I had no money left on the card. That's about the time when the whimpering began.

I was trying to wait until 9:00am to call my boss to ask her if the doctor's office would be open on Saturday, which it was. So I dragged my half-beaten body to the bus stop and headed into town. I told the doctor that I was still having fevers and that now my ears were in excruciating pain and I couldn't sleep. "Mmmhmmm" he said and picked up that ear-looking-in device. I winced in anticipation, he stuck it in, wiggled it around said "looks good". Looks good!! You have got to be joking. You mean to tell me that you don't see a full-scale bacterial uprising in there?!

I wanted to quote my Internet findings to him but instead he quoted the New England Journal of Medicine to me. He said that studies had shown that it is occasionally acceptable to use antibiotics in cold cases where the patients are asthmatic, as I am. Great! I said, will that make this pain go away? He gave me a prescription for what I guess were antibiotics and some over the counter Motrin. Interestingly enough he also gave me a shot...in the butt. I don't know what the shot was. I don't know if it did anything. But something about getting a shot when you go to the doctor makes you feel like something is being done to get you better.

I continued to whimper while waiting for my prescriptions. I whimpered while riding the bus. I whimpered walking up to my apartment. I whimpered wiggling my way back into bed. I lay there for a little bit and then all of a sudden, slowly at first, I heard a pop in my right ear. One pop, two pops, three pops stop. Then there was the sound of air entering, or air escaping from somewhere in my head. With each little noise that my ear made the pain resided just a little bit until I fell asleep. I didn't know if it was the shot, the meds, or if it was simply the right time but I was feeling better and I started to smile. That was until I saw that pesky stain on my pillow case. What is that? These are clean sheets!

For the rest of the night my ears started plugging and unplugging as though I were riding a tour bus through the alps. This morning, Sunday, I awoke with more ear pain on both sides. Knowing that it was pressure in my ears and not an infection I plugged my nose and blew. I heard a whine and a pop and I immediately felt the fluid start to drain from my both my ears, but more so from my right one directly onto my pillow to join it's mate from the previous day. The right ear plugged up again almost immediately. It's kind of painful to unplug it so I've been walking around with my head cocked to the right, like a dog when you ask it a question it doesn't recognize. Back to the computer I went for further information on this new symptom. I read that it is most likely due to a chronic inner or middle ear infection or as a result of a ruptured ear drum. I also read an article about a woman who had a cold five years ago and ever since then she has constant popping of her ears and they drain fluids.

I'm traveling to Osaka, Japan this coming weekend and I know that if this ear thing isn't fixed by then the flight will be excruciating but I don't want to go to the doctor again because I don't know if he's really helping. Dear Abby, I want to see an ENT. I want to be back in the land where I can peruse aisles and aisles of non-prescription medicines of every brand and variety imaginable. I want to be able to go to a store where I can pick up a bottle of NyQuil, Ibuprofen, some sleep aids, a Cosmopolitan, a box of Kleenex, a tray of cookies and some Wrigley's Polar Ice gum and be on my way with no language barrier problems, questioning looks of concern, or multi-stop shopping.

Today, I want to go home.