My First Trip to the Doctor

There is a belief here that coldness makes people ill. Drink cold water and you'll become ill. Don't sit on the ground or you'll become ill. Don't use air conditioning in the summer or you'll be ill. Always wear a jacket in winter or you'll become ill. Crank the heat super high so you don't get ill. In class yesterday, my teacher discovered I was sick and he said its because it's getting really cold at night here. I'm not sick because it was cold last night, I'm sick because of IKEA. 

On Sunday, I went to IKEA to finally buy furniture. Sunday's are the day most people have off from work here and they use their time to flood parks, malls, and IKEA. On Sunday, I'm convinced there were more people at IKEA than at Walmart on Christmas Eve. And since cold makes you ill, the heat was cranked up and when body heat was added, IKEA felt like an oven. I'm convinced I'm ill because all the germs of the crowds were incubating and multiplying in the heat and I caught them. Then again, it could be because I drank cold water that morning. 

It started with a cough Sunday night and by Monday morning it was a scratchy and sore throat. Progressively on Monday I began to feel worse. I woke up around 2am Tuesday morning with a terrible headache, terrible sore throat, and a fever. I slept most of Tuesday but woke again with a fever. By Wednesday morning though I was feeling great minus a sore throat. I even made my way to the city center to take care of some business. Before bed on Wednesday night, my throat was hurting again and I decided to look at it with a flashlight. I discovered some nasty white spots at the back of my throat. 

Yesterday, I decided maybe I should go to the doctor to just make sure I'm on the mend. The doctor's offices here are usually in a hospital. There is a corridor with seats for waiting patients and each doctors' exam rooms/office off to the sides. Everything takes place in that single room which I think is genius because it saves floor space. *Since I am from one of the richest countries in the world and can pay cash, I got to skip ahead of all the waiting patients and went straight in to see the doctor. To be honest, while it was nice to not have to wait, it made me feel ashamed to essentially cut line because I'm "rich." What makes me so special compared to these other suffering wives and daughters and fathers? Why should they be delayed just because I have more money than them. These are feelings I didn't anticipate having here.

[*By American standards, people would not think I'm rich but Americans tend to have a skewed version of what is rich. A person who makes $25,000 a year is in the top 2% of richest people in the world. A person making only $12,000 a year is in the top 15%. Visit this site to see where you stand.]

The doctor took one look at my throat and declared I have the flu. Apparently there is a terrible flu outbreak here and people can get it multiple times in a month before finally beating it. He had seen 600 patients already this month with this flu. He was thankful he caught mine early and said he wanted to aggressively attack it so it won't haunt me for a month. He grimaced a little and said he'd have to give me an injection. He went on to prescribe 4 additional medicines but two were Sudafed and Tylenol. He said I would have to bring the injection back from the pharmacy next door so he could administer it. 

At the pharmacy, we tried to get an itemized list of my medicine costs. Somewhere in that ordeal, we discovered that I was supposed to get 2 shots a day for seven days for a total of FOURTEEN shots. And I thought I had to get a lot of pre traveling overseas immunizations. Good thing I'm not squeamish around needles. Thanks IKEA.

A local pharmacy

My medicines/shots