Sick as a Dog

I have been under the weather since Sunday, which of course was my day off.  Saturday night I developed at scratchy cough, not surprising as I have been inhaling three thousand year old dust coated with mold spores for the last couple of weeks. I brushed it off.

Monday I had a terrible sore throat and I could not stop coughing. Made it impossible to sleep.

Tuesday I decided that I would not go to the lab as I could not stop coughing and sneezing. Plus I didn't want to infect folks at the field school. Tuesday was not a banner day for the field school. I was sick and several people on our team went down due to food born illness. In all maybe 1/3 of the participants were unable to work.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday greeted me with more terrible cold symptoms. Boo Hoo! This is my third sick day in a row, and I am bored and cranky. As some of you know, I am a dreadful patient. Unfortunately Andrea has to deal with me, and to add insult to injury, one of my sick days was on her birthday. We had to cancel plans for a night out on the town.

It is at this point in the story that you will learn a valuable lesson. Take a look at the photograph of my cold remedies. There are some tissues, homeopathic cough drops and syrup, throat gargling liquid and saline nose drops. Nowhere do you see NyQuil or Tylenol Cold or Robitussin. These over the counter cold remedies are not available in Greece, nor is there another comparable Greek brand available. They simply tell you that it is a virus that you have to let run its course, and that you will be well in a few days. So, I have no effective means of controlling my cold symptoms, making me twice as miserable.

The lesson is as follows.  If you are traveling to Greece, take a small pharmacy with you.  There is no corner drug store or CVS where you can by over the counter medications.  Even ibuprofen and aspirin require a trip to the pharmacy. Inside the pharmacy you will not simply be able to choose an item off of the shelf, pay for it and leave. 

You must approach the pharmacist, state your ailment and what you would like, and hopefully they will oblige you. This bugs the shit out of me. Why should I have to state my business to the pharmacist and all of the other folks in the store.  What if I were searching for hemorrhoid cream? Does everybody in town need to know about it?

Suddenly a memory about the pharmacy on Astypalaia surfaces in my mind. Ten years ago I walked into said pharmacy and asked for some Advil PM or its equivalent. I was having trouble sleeping with the 10 hour time difference. The pharmacist denied my request. I left the shop empty handed.

I'm sorry, I don't think it is right that I must present my medical problem in public only to have the outcome decided by some random person who is not a doctor.

Do yourself a favor, when visiting Greece bring a small pharmacy with you. Pain killers, allergy meds, antacids, Preparation H, Neosporin, bandaids etc. None of these items is available at a supermarket. If you don't use any of the stash yourself, you might be able to find a suffering American around to sell it to!

Hope my rant was moderately educational.

I'm still miserably sick.

More soon.