Sky is always blue

This chronic coughing fit is more excruciating at night when I desperately needed ample hours of sleep to make up for all those early wake-ups this past week. Earlier in the day yesterday, one of my office staff witnessed the incessant chronic pain I suffer from coughing. She then suggested a home-made remedy of which she read from a random magazine sometimes in the last century. The rudimentary regiment for this home-made remedy is to rub a thick layer of Vicks, the over-the-counter cough suppressant and topical analgesic, on both of my feet and wrap them with winter socks. I was skeptical at the time but my desperation to get some good night sleep called for a desperate attempt to actually make it happen.

Just when I was about to wrap the socks around my feet, he came home to tell me that a Chinese classmate suggested a traditional Chinese remedy. It was a simple remedy with just a few steps -- cut a ripe pear into 3 or 4 pieces and boil in water, simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes until the fruit meat is soften and extract the juice to dilute with the boiling water. Once the liquid is thicken, pour it out onto a bowl then sip the remedial concoction slowly while it's still warm. Simple? He made a trip to Stop and Shop, brought home 3 ripe red pears and 6 stalks of lemon-grass upon my request.

Then my mom called; I couldn't hide my coughing while talking to her because the freaking chest was gripping my lunges too tight I couldn't breath normally. The motherly nature of hers began to reproach me with the oh-so-typical lecture "you don't take care of yourself, you work too much, you don't eat right, I told you to do this and you take it lightly...etc." I love her for every single bit of her motherly disapproval of the ways I have taken care of myself. It's all about love.

My mother often used this one line to sum up her point whenever she wanted me to be healthy, she would waste no time to remind me with her legitimate mantra, "Mẹ sanh con ra nguyên vẹn, không bệnh tật rồi nuôi con lớn khoẻ mạnh như bây giờ, bây giờ con không lo cho sức khoẻ của con thì uổng công Mẹ biết bao nhiêu." If I could loosely translate, she would say "I gave you a healthy and wholesome birth, with no illness and raised you to be as healthy as you are now, if you don't take care of yourself, then you have wasted my efforts." My heart wrenched in excruciating pain with total guilt.

I obliged to her recommendation, search the fridge for 2 fresh stalks of lemon-grass, a handful of young ginger-root, some lime zests and then boil all of these items on the stove for 20 minutes to make a "xông hơi" pot or home-made sauna. I didn't forget to drip into the pot a few droplets of green mint oil to optimize the sauna effect. It's a typical Vietnamese home-made remedy for respiratory problem, it helps to perspire the "bad" sweat out of the system and allow the lungs to restore its normal function.

So there I was in my living room at midnight, my feet were tingled with Vicks as the ointment began its service and heating up the tender skin at the bottom of my feet. While waiting for the pear concoction to reach the final phase of its simmering, I covered myself under a thick blanket with the sauna pot placed directly under my face. At this wee hour, I was desperate to try anything, to take any measure easing my pain and thus, using two home-made remedies simultaneously and praying that both would work inclusively. The sauna was actually taking its effect immediately; I perspired profusely, hoping to excrete all the "bad" air out of my system as mom suggested. The pear remedy was about to ready by the time I finished the sauna. It wasn't bad at all -- everything was therapeutic.

I woke up this morning, the pain subsided, the cough was more sporadic. It was either the hours of sleep I received, or the remedies...but I felt a whole lot better. If the remedies worked, then I am still unsure which one was more effective than the other. However, in all consideration of taking different measurement to the restoration of my normal health after this one week of coughing hell, I called my doctor at 8 am, pleading with the nurse for a same-day appointment. I was lucky to get a 1:15 pm slot.

Tonight, I am packing my suitcase for another trip to New York City.

-/-
2:49 pm
Doctor update

Seriously, I spent more time waiting for my doctor to check up on me than the time she actually used to diagnose my conditions. Sitting there in the room, surrounded by many metallic equipments, chills running up and down my spine in the only gown they gave me. I felt so naked and vulnerable. Well, good news, I just have a mild viral infection and need to be on antibiotic for a few days. The doctor guaranteed that if I keep my body hydrate with lots of fluid, vitamin C, and lots of sleep, then I will be fine in a few days.

For $15 bucks, my bought myself some peace of mind. :) Now I don't need to worry about having bronchitis.

I took the day off from work to tend my sickness and spent the rest of the day on my comfy sofa doing nothing.

It's a great feeling!

-/-
8:00 pm

I got bore from idling around in the living room all day, coughing chronically from one episode to another. Finally, I found a solution to disband my boredom: cooking. Within half an hour, I garnered enough ingedients to turn them into a nice dinner.

I love Basmati rice.

-/-
10:00 pm

I am suffering from a massive migraine headache for 5 hours. Five freaking hours with constant pounding on one side of the head. No matter how many glasses of water I gulped down since early of this afternoon, the migraine does not go away.

This shouldn't be happening...it defeats the whole purpose of taking day off from work to recover from a bad cold.

Helpppppppp!

After two crazy weeks in the whirlwind of professional conferences, I am glad to be back to my office tomorrow morning. The frequency of travel and being away from home has taken a physical toll on me because I am not doing what my doctor has told me to do. I guess that's what I have to pay for not going with the doctor' orders, and I paid for it the hard way...

Instead of spending quality time with Mr. before he moved to Boston for his summer internship, I spent last Friday evening in the emergency room for a duration of 4 hours. Actually, I spent more time waiting to see the doctor more than the time I spent with the doctor. I hate waiting at hospital. It doesn't have one bit of hospitality. Anyway, you might wondered why I visited the ER...it is a long story. But to make it short, I woke up one morning and discovered a big red blood clot in my right eye, just around the chamber of the eye. I was freaking out as you could have imagined, I called my doctor at 8 o'lock in the morning. Unfortunately, the office has not yet opened for business. After a day of constant dialing (and harassing the receptionist), my effort was to no avail; my doctor was all booked for another 2 weeks of her schedule. What the fuck? The nursed advised me to stay calm, and told me that it would not be a malignant condition through my details of explanation over the phone. As I mentioned at the beginning, the whirlwind of conferences didn't leave me any time to visit a different doctor and the best option I had available at the time was to visit the ER. And so I went.

Oh lord, the NBC' show "ER" has glamorized the emergency room, but the one I went to was nothing as glamorous as the setting on the dramatic television show. The place is inhospitable and inhabitable. It was damp, gloomy, stenched, and dense. I could feel the contamination of all kind of germs in the world captured inside the tiny and invisible-to-human-eyes particles of air floating invisibly around the room, and inside of every single breathe I took. I felt more sick just simply from the staleness of the atmosphere. Other patients in the waiting room had more severe injuries comparable to mine but I waited nonetheless (although the thought of going home immediately had crossed my mind) just to get proper diagnose from the expert. Sitting there in the waiting room, I became impatient. Odd, I thought to myself, the term "patient" as to denote "One who receives medical attention, care, or treatment" -- the term was coined to reflect a person's patience of waiting for the doctor. As in my case, I was an impatient patient who got jittery waiting in a roomful of germs and a strong pungent of other people' odors. YUCK.

After more than 3 hours waiting...impatiently, the nurse (male nurse) came out with a file chart on one hand, and the other one with a pen pointing the chart. He tried to call on my name but stuttered his way through "N-G-U-Y-E-N". It came out as "N-E-W-G-E-N"...in which I abhorred vehemently when it's being mispronounced horribly. You DAMN Americans could never pronounce "ethnic" names properly!!! The nurse led me to a secured double door, punched in the secret codes, and walked in as the doors popped opened. I followed him through a room fulled of other people were in for any many other reasons. The nursed pointed at an emptied bed sandwiched between two other people whom I later found out (while waiting for my doctor) that one had diarrhea (from eating taco) and the other had a knee infection (from the lack of mobility). After another 15 minutes of waiting, the doctor finally approached and introduced himself. He asked me a couple of questions in pertinent to my eye conditions then took the light device to check my eyes. He ordered me to look up, down, left and right. Two seconds later, he came to a conclusive diagnose that I have Subconjunctival Hemorrhage which is harmless, causing no damages to my eye sight, and will go away in two weeks or so. I breathed with a relief (amid the pungent of different odors) as the doctor reassured me of its conditions and effect (or the lack thereof). He asked me to wait (wait, again!) for the complete paper work (so I can pay my $25 co-payment) before I could be released from the ER. I was sitting there on my bed, feeling a load of weights lifted off my shoulder, all the worries were gone, as I listened to the sounds of moaning and crying from the other patients in the room.

I vow to take care of my body, my physical being, drink a lot of water, eat lots of vegetable, get lots of rest, avoid stress, and pace myself with work....so I don't have to visit the ER ever again.