The Hospital

So I went to bed hopping to get better. I was drinking a lot and hoping that sleep and liquids would do the trick. I proceeded to wake up every 2 hours, sore throat and fever running high. By the time morning rolled around, I kept trying to get up, and get going with my day, even though I didn´t have any plans, but I just couldn´t and kept going back to bed. Somebody rang the doorbell but there was no way I was getting up. I heard my other roommates come home around 1 or so and when they started making lunch. I heard someone call at the front door and I knew what was going on. I heard someone say they didn´t think I was here, and then they came and knocked at my door. I somehow mumbled that I was sick and to tell Pepa that, and that I wasn´t coming to her house. My roommies were shocked to see me there in bed, all along, and gave me some medicine. I don´t really like to take medicine, let alone stuff that I don´t even know what it was but by now I knew I needed something. Then I heard the doorbell again and Pepa calling my name. She came into my room and turned on the lights and felt my forehead to see what was wrong with me. She said, you do have a fever, come to my house. I said why?, but she didn´t really hear me as she pulled me out of bed, told me I shouldn´t wear so many layers, have eaten a banana for breakfast and called her sooner. My roommies were making me soup, but stopped when they saw that Pepa had other plans of kidnapping me. So I stumbled in my PJs out of the house and down stairs. A thermometer was stuck in my mouth and Emilio thought I looked so funny and miserable with a thermometer in my mouth that he got up and proceeded to clap my face in his hands as only granparents in a movie do. This was very tramatic as I had a fever, and a glass thermometer in my mouth and did not want to get stitches in there too. They seemed to think it was hilariously endearing how miserable I was. I still don´t understand. I was forced to eat some broth while Emilio told me about this other person I could call for a job, who was a friend of Rafa, a friend of ..... buzzzzzzzzzzzzz... I had no idea what he was saying. I tried to eat my soup as fast as I could even though I was not hungry at all, and asked if I could go to bed. They seemed suprised at my request but said yes. They woke me up a while later and said it was time to get up and take my temperature again. It was 38º before and now it was closer to 40º. I had no idea what that meant and they didn´t seem overly concerned. I don´t know how long I was up untill I asked if I could go back to bed. They seemed to think the way to beat a fever is to sit at a table and talk with them while Pepa smokes. So that´s the way the rest of the day and Tuesday went. Sleep, get woken up, told to come to the table, be forced fed, more unknown medicine, thermometer, repeat. Apparently Victor was sick as well, not with a fever, but with stomach issues which Pepa deduced came from the meatballs we ate. Obviously it was nothing served at her table because her and Emilio were perfectly fine. I was told to sleep there that night and asked to go upstairs to my house to brush my teeth. I left my roommates a note, so they wouldn´t be worried. I was told they later came to visit me, but I was already asleep.

Pepa woke me up at 6 AM Tuesday morning, more thermometer, sleep, and then later at 9, more thermometer. By 9 baby Marina had been dropped off for babysitting, and although I didn´t think it was a good idea for me to be around children, Pepa had me watch/hold her while she showered. My fever had finally broken for reals, but I still felt and looked terrible. I also had the idea of looking on my cell phone to see if my converter had Fº to Cº conversion and it did. Turns out, 40º C is 104ºF. wow When Pepa left a while later, I sneaked a shower and went back to bed. I was woken up for lunch, back to bed. Woken up when the electrician came to install more lights in the bathroom at 4 and said I thought I would go back to my house. I thought wrong. Emilio said I could go back after dinner. I was nervous because it was 4 in the afternoon and Spainards don´t eat dinner till at least 8 o´clock... So I was forced to call so-in-so who had a job for me, and thankfully the lady who I was supposed to meet for English that evening called and cancelled. I asked if Pepa had any pictures of Emilio when he was younger and then I looked at all the family picture albums untill 7 pm, when I was finally released from the Spanish version of Hotel California. I went upstairs and found my worried roommates, who were wondering if I had died. I brushed my teeth again, which I really like to do, folded the laundry I had started Sunday, and started my other load. Then I went back downstairs for dinner, even though I wasn´t hungry. I finally got away after that and was so glad to be back in my house. I am very thankful that they were there to take care of me because I would have just laid in my bed untill I was better, which I might not have gotten so quickly. On the other hand, they were calling their sister-in-law who is a doctor, going to the pharmacy and giving me homemade soup. I was well taken care of, but being sick in somebody else´s home, no matter how homey and welcoming and caring and loving your hosts are, is no fun. Bottom line, I would have given anything to be in my bed, in my country, with my mommy and daddy and grandma taking care of me.

So then I went home, watched TV for a bit and went to bed because I had real work the next day. Unfortunately, after you sleep for 2 days, its hard to fall asleep at night...