I'm Sick

Again. Like "God-hates-me-because-of-that-time-I-stole-a-dollar-from-the-collection-so-i'm-being-punished-now" sort of sick. And it's been pretty stead for 2 weeks, almost.

Not just a cold but fever, chills, congestion, night sweats, aching, everything. Again. Why so sick so soon again? I’ve heard some expats say that the stress of completely uprooting can cause a fair amount of illnes the first year. Although Suriya says that “fever is going around very bad in Moscow right now” (which fever, she does not say. Scarlet? Dengue? Disco?) Allison says it’s because my Canadian immune-system is not used to the Russian strains of all the illnesses. Kolya says it’s because I didn’t wear my hat when we went on a night-snowman-walk.

Maybe they are all right. Maybe none of them are. I've been the kind of sick where I can’t write or even read. The point is that I spent my entire long-weekend (a long-weekend!) and three working days marathonning the following: Californication Season 1; 30 Rock Season 1; The Godfather I ⅈ Arrested Development Seasons 1&2; My So-Called-Life (The Complete Series); The Shining; 28Days Later; The Mary Tyler-Moore Show Season 1.

Good thing I moved all the way to Russia. You sure can`t get this kind of experience back home.

But panicked about the missing work days, I knew I would need a note from a doctor. Unfortunately, the only doctor I had contact numbers for was out of Moscow. So I messaged Kolya (at 4:20 in the morning, bless him) and told him that I needed help finding a doctor. In fact, by 9:30 Friday morning, I had asked no fewer than five people to help me find a doctor.
Harder than you`d think.
Kolya calls around to several different “medic centres” which are basically dispach-centres for doctors. After four won’t take me because they have no English-speaking doctors, a fifth offers to take up my case for 6400 rubles. A little quick math here: that’s just over 180 bucks. No effing way, even if my insurance will reimburse me (and who ever really knows if they will). I call work and explain it to them, and Tony tells me that I ought to put more effort into sleeping and getting better and less into calling every medic centre in the North end of Moscow. I sound like absolute crap on the phone, and am cancelling some of my favourite classes. They believe me, they believe me, they say; enough. Go to bed. there are either worried for my health, or sick of my whining, and I suspect that it is both.

Ah yes, sleep and rest. But as of Thursday, my neighbour (who’s apartment is adjacent only to my bedroom, of course) has started using some kind of appliance that vibrates. I have no idea what it is, but randomly, at any hour of day or night, it kicks in at a decibel level just low enough that I’m not sure if It’s my poor plugged ears or her new refrigerator/belt sander/vibrator.

Because when you’re in the throes of fever, what you really need to be wondering is if you are hearing things.

Anyhow, all that was left to do was go to the drugstore and get myself some meds. Fun fact: did you know that you can buy penicillin and antibiotics over the counter in Russia? Well you can. And, knowing my body, and knowing what strep throat feels like, I decide to get some antibiotics. Except that the pharmacist, despite not being able to talk to me, won’t sell me anbiotics. Not like she’s against it on principle or anything, she just happens to think that this whatever-mystery-pill that she has will be better. It is the only thing she offers to sell me (all over-the-counter meds are literally over the counter here) so sick, sleep-deprived, and still hearing humming in my ears, I buy the mystery-pill. Three dollars for two-weeks worth. Weird, considering the cost of a doctor’s visit, right? Vova, the store security guard who always greets me by name notices my coughing and insists I buy cognac and, like every other Russian who I have spoken to in the past two days, many different forms of lemon-products. Lemons are to sick Russians what oranges are to sick North Americans; God‘s contribution to curing what ails you.
Still, feeling no better, I am rummaging through my makeup bag, looking for tweezers (maybe to do my eyebrows, maybe to stab myself in the brain--it’s a tossup at this point) when in a side-pocket, what do I find? Two NyQuil tabs, still in their foil smuggled over from Canada and long forgotten. I screech in a tone of voice that makes Kira think one of the cats is dead. I pop them from the safety packaging and stare at them with the love heretofore reserved in my life for human beings, Heineken, and reruns of Saved by the Bell. Like to glittering green emeralds in my palm, there it is: Western medicine.

Anyhow, the way this tale of self-pity twisted and turned, you were probably wondering where I was going with it. Here is the moral of the story: Be glad you can read pharmaceutical packaging wherever you are. It’s something I took for granted.

Also, if you’re reading this, please send me NyQuil.