Zoinked

I figured it as just a matter of time, and sure enough I started to feel it by Sunday afternoon. Last week so many of my students had looked feverish and miserable as they hacked their way through my classes mouths-open, germs-flying, child style.

So it was that I dragged my ass to work on Monday and then dragged my ass to the doctor for the one hundred and sixty seventh ass injection/spanking Ive had since Ive been in Korea. There's a new nurse at Dr. Dolphin's office and she seems very nice, but it unnerves me that she does not stop touching me pretty much from the time I enter the clinic to when I leave. I must have looked particularly pathetic on Monday because she came from behind the desk to sit beside me in the waiting area, petting my leg the whole time. In the doctor's office, I perch myself on the stool beside his desk so he can use the sonar in his forehead to diagnose me. That's not entirely fair. The nurse reaches into my shirt from behind me to yank my bra away from my chest while the doc places the stethoscope in four spots for exactly half a second per location. Then he says, "Nnnyyaagghh!" which means "open your mouth" in Lazy-speak, and he depresses my tongue for three seconds. When the nurse doesn't have her hands in my shirt, she's got them moving around on my back. It's distracting and I resist the temptation to turn and smack her hands off me.

The doc clicks some computer keys and holds up four fingers and says, "days" and then points toward his door and then to the left, which means I should head to the curtained area where the nurse is going to stick a needle in my ass and slap me bye-bye.

I head back to work and see my boss for the first time that day. "Are you okay?" he asks.
"Not so much," I reply.
"Odi appayo?" (Where are you sick?)
"Everywhere."
"Kamgi?" (Do you have cold?)
"Anniyo. Malaria."
"Huh?"
"Ebola."
"What?"
"Yellow gold bunsick?"
...


Props to Dr. Dolphin, though. I pop a handful of pills and a shot of cough syrup every eight hours and don't feel too rough. However, about five or six hours later the potion starts to wear off and I'm reminded that I actually feel like crap underneath it all. The thing that can't be covered up with the medicine, though, is the bone crushing fatigue. I've had trouble keeping my eyes focused this week. They keep involuntarily rolling toward the back of my head. Like they've done six or seven times since I started typing this. So I'm off to bed.

Bloody TGIF, huh?