After feeling the onset of a cold on Wednesday with some dizziness and a fever, I woke in the middle of the night in a coughing fit, throat burning, and fever. Thursday was my medical check up for my entrance exam to China. (One must pass a thorough medical exam in the process of getting the expat work visa and residency.) The full-blown cold had yet to hit at that point, so I pushed myself to just go and have the exam done and over with.
That afternoon (Thursday), I went home sick. Horrible sore throat, cough, runny eyes and nose. It seemed to get worse by the minute, head spinning, fever, etc. I tried to sleep. Thursday night was not fun. Tossing and turning and coughing.
Today (Friday) I had to take the whole day as a sick day (yes, day 3 in China and I was already full-blown sick and needing to take sick leave from school). I had no voice. To spare you the snotty details (especially you, Moo-Ma!), let's just say that it was not pretty. No way I was going to be at school around the kiddos and colleagues. Who wants to be sick right before October Break? (October 1-8 are off in honor of Chinese National Day and celebrations, so there is no school until the 9.)
Waiting for the Friday morning to pass seemed like an eternity, and every time I awoke from a 45-minute nap, I felt as if I was a bear awakening from hibernation. I was in a daze and not thinking clearly. I blame it on the fever and throbbing head congestion.
Our ayi showed up around 9am. Ayi (pronounced like saying the English vowels "I-E") is the cultural term used to refer to one's housekeeper. As was my experience in Latin America, it is common practice for middle-class households to have a housekeeper who tends to cleaning, watching children/caring for pets, and cooking, depending on what the client requests. For about 6 months or so, Kari has been hiring the cleaning services of an ayi, for three hours on Mondays and Fridays. It is nice not to have to worry about cleaning and taking out trash and laundry. She doesn't cook, but she does like to re-arrange things. She doesn't read/write, and since I speak no Chinese yet, it makes communication difficult (furthermore, Ayi speaks a Ningbo-ese dialect that is not like the Mandarin I will be learning). More to come later on the Ayi topic.
Anyway, when Ayi came in, I was sick as a dog in bed. Trying to sleep, with my door closed. Ayi must have heard me coughing, and she opened the door to my lair of dark and germs. What surprise could be seen on her face! She had no idea Kari would have a roommate moving in, and must have been further astonished to find an obviously ill laowi (foreigner) in the spare room. And so much more stuff in the apartment! I can only imagine what was going through her mind. She immediately starting doting on me. I was so out of it, I hardly remember how many times she came into my room, but I know that she woke me up several times to deliver hot water to me, or food. One time she also tried to pull my covers up around me (despite the fact that I was burning up, as it was 80+ºF and I was running a temp, even though I had the A/C on).
Kari has been calling Ayi her surrogate Chinese host mother. According to my own prior experiences with host moms, that's exactly how I felt about the relationship. With a HUGE cultural divide. I had no way to communicate to her that I really just wanted to be left alone. Thanks for the hot water and kind intentions of keeping me warm, but I was seriously about to ignite in flames. And I didn't have the energy to communicate/protest, so I just gave up and let her do whatever she pleased. Which included rearranging all my stuff out in the living room, bringing me drinks and food, washing all my dirty clothes and dishes, picking up my snotty tissue mess and taking out all of the trash I'd generated in my sick state. She left around noon.
By the afternoon, I was able to get up. All the extra sleep really helped, and I had a bit of energy. I was getting a bit stir crazy--especially since there was no internet for some strange reason. I checked the VPN settings. Was there a problem with my connection? None of my devices would connect to wifi or with ethernet cable. They wouldn't even access China-approved sites. It said they had internet, but there was no connection. It looked like I was without internet. No Hulu. No Netflix. No Facebook. Nothing to entertain me. First-World Problems. I watched Flashdance and Aladdin from my movie collection.
By the time Kari was out of school, I was feeling up to going out. We figured out why we didn't have internet. They're updating the system in our neighborhood. And it will take all week. Cool. All week we're on holiday. This is China (TIC).
Since I had been cooped up all day, and Kari and I had errands to do, we biked several blocks to get passport-sized photos (which are always necessary for visas and travel and completing various documents). Afterwards, we went to Cup o' Joe's coffee shop (to be explained in another blog post). We met up with other expats and internationals and enjoyed a night with some internet access. Though I had hardly no voice to speak with, it was great to meet people, and I was in good spirits.
When I started to fade around 8pm, we picked up some pizzas and headed back to our internet-less apartment. I couldn't taste the pizza, but I filled up my tummy, downed more vitamins and Airborne and Emergen-C, and crashed for a good night's sleep.
Be assured, thanks to the fact that I brought a whole pharmacy with me from the States, I have all the necessary antidotes to remedy/calm my systems and restore me to health. Airborne, Emergen-C, vitamins, teas, even antibiotics, prescriptions of nasal sprays and steroid inhalers, in addition to probiotics and other supplements.
That's all for now. I'm sure this was way more than any of you wanted to read, with the exception of my mother. But that's an update on my status and the first few days here in China.
(-Written Friday night, posted Saturday morning, because I didn't have internet access until I went back to Cup O' Joe this morning.)
That afternoon (Thursday), I went home sick. Horrible sore throat, cough, runny eyes and nose. It seemed to get worse by the minute, head spinning, fever, etc. I tried to sleep. Thursday night was not fun. Tossing and turning and coughing.
Today (Friday) I had to take the whole day as a sick day (yes, day 3 in China and I was already full-blown sick and needing to take sick leave from school). I had no voice. To spare you the snotty details (especially you, Moo-Ma!), let's just say that it was not pretty. No way I was going to be at school around the kiddos and colleagues. Who wants to be sick right before October Break? (October 1-8 are off in honor of Chinese National Day and celebrations, so there is no school until the 9.)
Waiting for the Friday morning to pass seemed like an eternity, and every time I awoke from a 45-minute nap, I felt as if I was a bear awakening from hibernation. I was in a daze and not thinking clearly. I blame it on the fever and throbbing head congestion.
Our ayi showed up around 9am. Ayi (pronounced like saying the English vowels "I-E") is the cultural term used to refer to one's housekeeper. As was my experience in Latin America, it is common practice for middle-class households to have a housekeeper who tends to cleaning, watching children/caring for pets, and cooking, depending on what the client requests. For about 6 months or so, Kari has been hiring the cleaning services of an ayi, for three hours on Mondays and Fridays. It is nice not to have to worry about cleaning and taking out trash and laundry. She doesn't cook, but she does like to re-arrange things. She doesn't read/write, and since I speak no Chinese yet, it makes communication difficult (furthermore, Ayi speaks a Ningbo-ese dialect that is not like the Mandarin I will be learning). More to come later on the Ayi topic.
Anyway, when Ayi came in, I was sick as a dog in bed. Trying to sleep, with my door closed. Ayi must have heard me coughing, and she opened the door to my lair of dark and germs. What surprise could be seen on her face! She had no idea Kari would have a roommate moving in, and must have been further astonished to find an obviously ill laowi (foreigner) in the spare room. And so much more stuff in the apartment! I can only imagine what was going through her mind. She immediately starting doting on me. I was so out of it, I hardly remember how many times she came into my room, but I know that she woke me up several times to deliver hot water to me, or food. One time she also tried to pull my covers up around me (despite the fact that I was burning up, as it was 80+ºF and I was running a temp, even though I had the A/C on).
Kari has been calling Ayi her surrogate Chinese host mother. According to my own prior experiences with host moms, that's exactly how I felt about the relationship. With a HUGE cultural divide. I had no way to communicate to her that I really just wanted to be left alone. Thanks for the hot water and kind intentions of keeping me warm, but I was seriously about to ignite in flames. And I didn't have the energy to communicate/protest, so I just gave up and let her do whatever she pleased. Which included rearranging all my stuff out in the living room, bringing me drinks and food, washing all my dirty clothes and dishes, picking up my snotty tissue mess and taking out all of the trash I'd generated in my sick state. She left around noon.
By the afternoon, I was able to get up. All the extra sleep really helped, and I had a bit of energy. I was getting a bit stir crazy--especially since there was no internet for some strange reason. I checked the VPN settings. Was there a problem with my connection? None of my devices would connect to wifi or with ethernet cable. They wouldn't even access China-approved sites. It said they had internet, but there was no connection. It looked like I was without internet. No Hulu. No Netflix. No Facebook. Nothing to entertain me. First-World Problems. I watched Flashdance and Aladdin from my movie collection.
By the time Kari was out of school, I was feeling up to going out. We figured out why we didn't have internet. They're updating the system in our neighborhood. And it will take all week. Cool. All week we're on holiday. This is China (TIC).
Since I had been cooped up all day, and Kari and I had errands to do, we biked several blocks to get passport-sized photos (which are always necessary for visas and travel and completing various documents). Afterwards, we went to Cup o' Joe's coffee shop (to be explained in another blog post). We met up with other expats and internationals and enjoyed a night with some internet access. Though I had hardly no voice to speak with, it was great to meet people, and I was in good spirits.
When I started to fade around 8pm, we picked up some pizzas and headed back to our internet-less apartment. I couldn't taste the pizza, but I filled up my tummy, downed more vitamins and Airborne and Emergen-C, and crashed for a good night's sleep.
Be assured, thanks to the fact that I brought a whole pharmacy with me from the States, I have all the necessary antidotes to remedy/calm my systems and restore me to health. Airborne, Emergen-C, vitamins, teas, even antibiotics, prescriptions of nasal sprays and steroid inhalers, in addition to probiotics and other supplements.
That's all for now. I'm sure this was way more than any of you wanted to read, with the exception of my mother. But that's an update on my status and the first few days here in China.
(-Written Friday night, posted Saturday morning, because I didn't have internet access until I went back to Cup O' Joe this morning.)
