Okay, well let’s start with the bad news: I have strep throat. After walking to eight different doctor’s offices across the area in the middle of winter, we were finally able to find a doctor with an open slot who could tell me what I had already guessed. Granted his methods of deducing this were slightly questionable—no, I do not appreciate having a HORRIBLE tasting numbing spray put in my nose and throat and then having a painful little tube with a camera on it stuck down my nose and throat without my consent—but whatever. He got the job done. So four and a half hours after initially setting out, Maria Elena and I returned home, exhausted and mega hungry, with our prescriptions in hand. We immediately took the antibiotic and the fast acting pain reliever (thank God), and then ate since we were starving from not eating since 10 am. After lunch was done, we both fell asleep.
Now the good news: What started as the worst day ever has turned into quite a learning experience. Turns out I had another thing confirmed for me today. My host mom is pretty much awesome. Tonight as we were eating dinner I sort of had a breakdown from my exhaustion and frustration and feelings of isolation, and you know what? She made me fell a lot better. She explained to me that in the scheme of things this is all very small, which I have known all along of course but is hard to keep in perspective when you feel sick and alone. She then told me about how when she was 18 she moved from her coastal town to Santiago, and she felt very alone, but it made her stronger. And then when her son was five his father passed away and left her alone and in a bad economic situation, but this too made her stronger. And when her son went to study in Europe for graduate school (luckily, he had brought lots of friends with him to America for his undergrad), he felt very alone but this made him stronger. So as she was telling me all of this everything sort of came at me in a rush, and I felt quite overwhelmed. Her story was so sad and my life is so easy and I really feel positive about this experience and I am excited to be here but at the same time it’s hard to be sick and I’m anxious about learning the language and making friends and everything else. I tried to explain all of this to her, but I think it all came out as a jumbled mess. Anyway, I know that it if big things like what happened to her and her son make you stronger, then relatively little things like this can drive me forward, and if this is the lowest point of my trip then thank God for that because this is easy. And I really do feel so positive about everything. I think the greatest part about this is learning to let go, and I’ve really been working on it. It takes time, but I’m working on it. So anyway, we hugged it out and she explained to me that her home really is my home, and I don’t think I could ever express the gratitude I felt for that sentiment so I just nodded. As an icing on the cake, I checked the facebook group set up for people in my program only to find out that not only was no one mad at me (at least that they said) for exposing them to strep, a bunch of people had wrote telling me to get better, which made me smile. As did the encouraging messages from my friends at home (special shout outs to Lindzey and Fergalicious for the videos). In any event, I am feeling much better emotionally and physically now, and I thought I would share a video of my own with you. The message has been very encouraging to me, and I think the video is kind of awesome. Take a look.
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