Thursday, October 22, 2009

Maria goes to the doctor

Saturday, October 17, 2009, Sunday, October 18, 2009 and Monday, October 19

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIZ…on the 18th!

The past few days have not been too fun. I ended up not going to Florians on Friday night (which turned out to be a good thing because Julia busted it…) and stayed home because I wasn’t feeling too well. I ended up staying in bed almost all of Saturday and Sunday because I had such bad stomach pains it hurt to uncurl from the fetal position. I figured it was just something I ate and that it would pass, but it didn’t. I got up for class early this morning (Monday) and felt well enough to get ready. I made it almost all the way to the CLM before the cramps started up. I sat through the first 45 minutes of class, and then gave up. Luckily Will was in that class, so he brought me my homework (all 8 worksheets of it) and brought home my notebook and pen I had just left in class. Paula went to the doctor’s clinic with me that morning. It was a Monday…so it was pretty full. Even Paula said it was more full than she had seen it in a while. The doctor was late too! It was really interesting how it worked. There was only one doctor and it was basically the honor system when trying to figure out what order people got there. We were “behind the woman in red”. Haha. We ended up waiting about an hour before it was my turn. The doctor didn’t speak any English at all, so Paula really did have to translate everything. They decided it was probably just some sort of gastro thing…yay…even though I didn’t have many of the symptoms. Odd. I got som medicine which has helped a lot, so that’s good! I ended up missing the rest of my classes, which was really a bummer because it was supposed to be my first day in my new Grammar class (no more Susana!). Paula said she could make a copy of the doctor’s note, so I could take that in if I really wanted.

The most interesting part of the doctor’s visit was when the doctor found out I was lactose intolerant. She had asked me what I had for dinner the night before, and I had responded “pizza”. She goes: “but that has milk in it”. I explained (through translator, Paula) that I had Lactaid pills…this shocked her. Apparently here in Spain they treat lactose intolerance as untreatable and she had never heard of Lactaid-type pills. She kept asking: “so if you eat the pill before, you can eat anything with milk in it?”...completely shocked. Paula leaned over and said, “they have very different ideas of what is curable and what isn’t…” It’s just too bad, because I’d like to help the lactose intolerant Spaniards be able to eat gelato!

Anyway, I spent the rest of the day back at Jardines and started my “dieta blanda”. Ugh. I watched some episodes of Monk and Psych, so that was fun!

1 comment:

  1. Oh no! It's NO FUN to be sick in a foreign land! Get well soon!

    ReplyDelete