Call Me the Human Shar-Pei

For the last couple of weeks, I have been suffering with dryness on my eyelids extending up into my eyebrows. Since my eyebrows are not naturally thick, the scaliness was definitely apparent. Some people commented it was just in need of moisturizing, but I generally do this daily anyway.

As time went on, I noticed there was a sandy feeling on my eyelids. This alerted me to there really being a problem. I used natural oils to moisturize them before bed, but it did not help. It just kept getting worse while my eyelids swelled. It was when my eyesight started getting blurry that I started getting really concerned.

After consulting WebMD, it looked like I may have blepharitis. Repeated searches on various sites all came to the same symptoms and conclusions.

One of my former students that come to the university to meet me to pick up some things I was getting rid from my office. She went with me across the street to a pharmacy, to ask the pharmacist to look at my eyes to see if there was some over-the-counter medication I could buy to treat them. The pharmacist said that I would need to see a doctor, since the medication would require a prescription.

Later that day I went to our house doctor. On Thursday his hours are 4pm to 8pm. I was so proud of myself being there at 3:30pm and being the first one in line. About 10 minutes after my arrival to elderly gentleman arrived and took their seats to my left. We sat there patiently waiting for the nurse or the doctor to arrive. Close to 4pm, a nurse from the other side of the building happened to come over to an office close to where we were sitting. She looked at us with a question on her face, but didn’t say anything immediately. She walked over to our doctor’s office door, slapped on the sheet of paper taped to the door, and turned to us and said something in an incomprehensible Hungarian. At least the Hungarian was incomprehensible to me. I waited to see the reaction of the two gentlemen before making a move. They both continued to sit there as did I because I was not giving up my place. The nurse continued to hit the sign on the door, clearly enunciating the word nincs. It was then that I took a good look at the side and with my limited Hungarian knowledge realized that the doctor was going to be gone till June 17.

I finally returned to the doctor after he returned from his vacation, he looking dapper and tan, while I looked like a Shar-Pei puppy. He prescribed a steroid ointment for me to put on my eyes, but said if this doesn’t work I will have to see a dermatologist. I am hoping that this does work. My experience with the dermatologist here has not been the most positive sense getting an appointment proves to be extremely difficult. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

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• Dry Skin on Face, Feet and Eyelids
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Out Sick

This should have been posted over a week ago, but heck I was too sick to bother. It is so usual with me, it is almost boring to discuss, but here it is anyway. I have the worlds worst sinuses. The doctors in California did not want to bother with me, since my HMO would refuse anything they wanted to try anyway.

The doctor here sent me to an ENT who sent me to have an MRI done. That has been over a year ago. The verdict was as expected. Hey, you got lousy sinuses and they are going to be chronically infected, so get used to it.

It all starts out the same way. One day I wake up to feel like there is tapioca dripping down the sides of my throat. Sometimes, this brings on a sore throat, but not always. It does produce coughing because having that tapioca consistency pouring down your throat does not make for great breathing.

This go around was not much different except, I was not able to shake like I usually do. Generally, 2-3 days of hunkering in bed sleeping it off would do the trick. At other times, it gets into my lungs, causes an infection and moves on to full stage pneumonia. This was what happened this time.

So I have been on drugs, had an X-Ray and return to the doctor on Monday. Hopefully, all will be well.

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• Sinusitis: More Than Just the Sniffles
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Szia! My Caduceus is Moving Abroad

Image via Wikipedia

Last week, one of the attendees from the professional writing course that I taught, contacted me. He wanted to meet for a coffee. Being there were 35 in the morning class and an almost equal number in the 2nd session, I could not put a face to the name. We arranged to meet. He was probably the youngest person to attend this course; he is a freshman at another university. 

It only took a few minutes to confirm his intelligence. Now that I had a face, I remembered his highly intelligent comments and questions during the seminar classes. However, his first question to me over a steaming espresso drink was "How do I escape to America? Do you have any insider secrets?" If I had some insider secrets, I would be doing seminars called "Insider Secrets for Getting to America". Everyone thinks that all Americans have this bag of tricks on getting over the big pond and staying there in peace and harmony while they make the American Dream their reality.

This young man is not an isolated incident, but I did forward him some articles about the American economy, the cost of education in the US, and the Occupy Movements. Intelligence does not equal paying attention to current events.

While on the topic of fleeing, there was an article in Caboodle today that talks about medical doctors fleeing the country in droves. It states that 100 doctors leave the country each month to work abroad. I know that I have lost 2 doctors that I was seeing. Both spoke great English. 

According to Semmelweis University, the medical training facility where they teach in English, one third of the doctors who graduate don't ever start their career in Hungary. Fewer than 100 foreign doctors ask for their diploma to be validated in Hungary, meaning once they skedaddle, they are taking the welcome mat with them. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of doctors has dropped by 4,000. Get out those vitamins and stay healthy.

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Katie, Katie

Katie wrote in:

If you mean it and I can find time in all the planning I would be pleased to meet you. I have been an avid reader of yours since the first madness descended on me to move here.
Over that now and back to not so perfect but way more tolerant England. Can't comment on the US because I have never been there but I find this place really maddening. An idea just popped in my head, I live near Szentendre, so if you are interested I could show you around and have that cup of coffee. :-)

Change experiences, although I don't think anything short of a lottery win would make me want to stay here.
BTW which dental practice have you used and do they do cosmetic dentistry? Tried to look for it in the archive but hit a few dead ends. Thanks.
Take care now
Katie


Hey Katie,
I am coming on to spring break soon starting on March 31st. If you are still around then I would love to meet you for a coffee. There is a shop in Szendendre I have been wanting to return to. You know the town is in my travel guide? I was there recently to show it to a friend and update the info for the 8th edition of the book. 


Either way, if you are free then, let's get a coffee.
The dentist I went to is Haifa on Akacfa, but I would check with MedicalTours Hungary for other options. You can check them out here.

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Alvin the Chipmunk Meets the Tooth Fairy

Something has been creeping up on me, slowly but whammo! For the first six nights after we returned from our trip to East Africa, I had chills at night. Well, the temps were below freezing, so that is no biggie, but then strangely between 3am and 6am, I had the night sweats. How do I narrow it down to those hours? I have a habit of looking at the clock when I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night to see if it is worth returning to bed or if I should get something on my TO DO list checked off.

At 3am, everything is cozy when I crawl back into bed, but by my 6am walkabout, the sheets had been soaked. There is nothing more uncomfortable than getting into a cold, wet bed.

The day before yesterday, the sweats stopped, but the toothache started. With the exception of smoking for the past 43 years, I was the model dental patient. I brushed twice daily minimum, flossed after every meal, snack, or munchie, and had my teeth cleaned every three months. Did it help? Hell no! I have a raging infection in one of the eye teeth on the bottom. My cheek started swelling yesterday. I took aspirin for the pain, but switched to Motrin since aspirin causes stomach bleeding. The Motrin did absolutely nothing, so it was back to a potential stomach bleed, which was better than the pain. What really helped was rinsing with medicated mouthwash, but swishing around a good whiskey did not hurt at all either.

This morning, I woke up looking like Alvin the chipmunk. If I could sing in a high pitched voice, I could have cut a record. The right side of my face was so swollen, I had to turn sideways to get through doors. I called Randy Simor at Medi-Tours Hungary to get me fixed up with a dentist. We have had a long time dentist we refer to as Robert Redford, because he is young and good looking, but he is a real pain to reach in emergencies. Randy made an appointment for 3pm today.

Of course, I don't like the news. The tooth has to go. It has not played well with others and is causing problems so that the other teeth may learn the bad habits and join in the nasty games. The problem is, I have a four hour professional seminar I am giving tomorrow. I refused to go to a professional seminar to present missing a tooth in the front. No matter how hard I tried, the lower lip does need to lower for some sounds and vavoom, the lower teeth are exposed. I put it off until Tuesday, though the dentist was not happy. He did give me antibiotics for over the weekend.

There is something devastatingly depressing about losing your teeth as an adult. When you are a child, you hope the Tooth Fairy comes to see you. As an adult, it is an automatic statement about your self care, regardless of giving it all you had. It is also a sign of things to come, the debilitating ailments that may or may not follow. With any luck the Tooth Fairy will come with a great replacement tooth. Then I will not be so sad.

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Testing, Testing, Are You Alive?

We set the clock so we could test my stamina. There are things left undone. Shopping is the first priority. We left this for when we returned, to buy from the women's collective in support of it, plus not to have had to lug it around with us for four weeks. Now it is buy or regret it. Whatever hit me passed over. I was able to shower, get to breakfast, and wait for a taxi without feeling like I would keel over.

Since I was so sick yesterday, not one cigarette passed my lips prompting me to decide this morning to postpone my starting smoking again. I know others would say they are quitting or that is what I am attempting to do, but I am not. In my youth, my mother always called me a quitter and said I never finished anything I started. Although this was true, I did not have role models who did complete things other than the meals set before them. As I reached my 20s, this quitter label started wearing thin, so I made sure I completed things; some of those things were completions my mother wished I had quit. Going to beauty school was one of them. She hated having son who was a beautician or hairdresser as they were called back in the 70s. As it turned out the more I completed, the more I liked myself. Starting more ventures and completing them aided my self-esteem. So, now I cannot quit smoking, because I am not a quitter. What I am doing is postponing the starting date of when I will resume smoking again.

After placing a call to Solomon, the taxi driver who drove us from the railway station, we thought our good do-bee deed for the day was in place. Forty-five minutes later, Solomon called to say he could not find us. Well, impossible, we are the only two white people standing in the hot sun waiting for a taxi at this hotel. He was at the wrong hotel, so he would be delayed another twenty minutes. 

We waited an hour and a half, but no Solomon. The hotel receptionist Grace, said she would call us a reliable driver. John showed up. We wanted to go the David Sheldrick Foundation, but Mr. Map after consulting the map, insisted that since it is in the Nairobi Wildlife Reserve, we would have to pay $3o each to get in. I keep insisting that if this were true, the guidebook would have pointed it out. John's itinerary for us was to go to the Wildlife main office gate to ask about entrance, then go to the gate where the foundation is located and double check the visiting hours, then to the place where we want to shop. This little excursion is costing us 3,000 shillings (30 euros).

I was right, there is not charge to get into the Wildlife Reserve for the Foundation if you go to the correct gate. We did get to that gate, but at 11:30, so visiting hours were almost over. On our way to our shopping place, we stopped at a shop John wanted to show us. It was just as large, but nothing was presented well creating sensory overload. At our shop, I had wanted these beaded angels, but they were gone. I knew they would be, but I had hopes. We did find plenty of other things to buy finishing up our gift list.

John dropped us off downtown so we could stop at an ATM and Trattoria restaurant where I had the avocado milkshake. Today, we had lunch with our drinks. My chicken salad was delightful. Ron had gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce. Delish!

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A Message About Healthcare

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

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McCain on Healthcare

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Ron Retires

I had suggested to Ron that he ask our accountant about retiring from our business here in Hungary. We have been paying a number of taxes for him and vast amounts each month. Since we now have our Permanent Residency, he does not need to be employed any longer for an annual Visa. However, I wanted him to keep his health insurance here since his US insurance requires he pay out of pocket and if they deem it necessary, they will reimburse him 80%. When I came home, Ron had the paperwork that the accountant was going to submit retiring him. The accountant said he could not get insurance any more. I know this is not true. There was an article in the English papers stating you could. Something for him to investigate and for me to worry about until he does.

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