Spanish Remedies

Thursday was rough as well. I woke up at 11 after 12 hours of sleep, showered, but had to return to bed immediately after. I stayed in bed all day and even missed siesta (we had lomo *tear*). The fact that I had only eaten 2 pieces of fruit and some crackers before dinnertime was a pretty clear indicator of my sickness. Allison offered to take notes for me in our 5pm Spanish Civ. class so I could sleep and I gladly accepted. I couldn’t imagine braving another one of those shaky 20-minute walks. Dear Jesus had made me an appointment for 6:30pm that evening. I stopped by the JMU office for a few minutes beforehand and Don Corbin was kind enough to walk me to the Doctor’s. For the 40 minutes I waited in the waiting room, I only talked to the doctor for about 2. When the nurse finally called my name and opened the door I was confused as to where to go. "It couldn’t be the room to my right," I thought, "that’s someone’s office." But that’s exactly where she wanted me to go. I walked and sat down awkwardly as he just starred at me saying nothing. Ok, I guess he’s not going to be friendly and ask me how I’m doing, so I jumped right in and began listing my symptoms. I have to say I was pretty excited to say, “estoy muy constipada” which means I am very congested. He just nodded and asked to look at my throat. With two or three turns of his laser flashlight, he concluded that I had strep. Only in Spain would the white spots on my throat be convincing enough for the doctor. I was actually pretty relieved he didn’t give me the swab test though; it's one of my all-time weaknesses. And that was that. I took my prescription to the nearby pharmacy and picked up a box of three pills (also only in Spain would they give you a mere 3 days worth of antibiotics) for almost 9 euros. These pills better be made of gold and magic fairy dust.

I returned home where Acension made us fish and salad for dinner. Is she serious? What person (especially a madre) makes fish for someone who doesn’t feel good? This was the absolute last thing I wanted. I started getting homesick for my real madre, who would have known that all I wanted was saltine crackers with cream cheese, soup, and ginger ale. Later, it took me about three hours to pack for Barcelona. I’d put socks and pajamas in my bag and have to lay down--jeans, bed, toiletries, bed, pajamas, bed. Madre suggested that I stay home this weekend if I didn’t feel better Friday morning. Talk about the most depressing weekend of my life! I was determined to be ready to make the trip. At around 6:30am I woke up to sweet madre, huge floral nightgown and all, coming to assess the status of my health. She was serious. Praise God I felt like a real person (no more Zombie) that morning☺