Sick

Rough couple weeks heathwise for the Chais. First Joshua got this thing that’s been going around, had a high fever and cough for a full week, had to miss the last week of term. Then Abby got it, less severe, but still enough to put her out of commission. It appears Jieun and I have it as well – sore muscles, headache, fever, cough. Basically we’re just sitting around the house for a couple weeks doing nothing. Not much fun.

You know one difficult thing about being here – some of the drugs have different names. I got Abby a flu jab and they said if she develops a fever, to give her paracetemol. Say what? Turns out that’s acetaminophen. Why they would use different non-brand names in the US vs UK is beyond me. But there are a lot of drugs like that; even more confusing, some of the same named drugs are different. Like, Benadryl is not the same here as in the US. So figuring out the right drugs to get is non-trivial sometimes.

I hadn’t really felt homesick much but the combination of being sick, it being generally cold and dreary, it getting dark so early at this high latitude (sunset is currently at 3:50) and not knowing a lot of people at Christmastime has got me missing California more. I get why Jieun desperately wanted kalbi last night. Times like this you really want something familiar and comforting.