Good Olde Chinese Medicine!

Some of you might know that Shanghai has not been being very nice to my body and to a certain extent my health. The first few weeks we were here it was burning hot all the time, eight degrees or more in the middle of the night hot, no joke. Then Shane English School took us out to Daqian for teacher training and that is when the mosquito bites started, they were no where near as bad for me as they were for a lot of other people, but goodness they did itch. Since then the temperature has dropped, one week so drastically that the government issued a cold warning. And, now the high never breaks 69 degrees and more often than not lies somewhere closer to 61 degrees.

With this extreme weather fluctuation, the severe drop in already troublesome (Read: everyone smokes everywhere, especially right in front of the "no smoking" signs, and has poor smoking etiquette (e.g. they will blow smoke right in your face or light up as they drive you around in their taxi - yes, this happened!) levels of air quality, and the stress of life, school, work, and communication -- It is no surprise that I've been sick a couple times since I've arrived in China. My body held out for a while, a solid month or so which is more than most people in the program. But, this weekend was the worst! I had to a certain extent accepted that I now have developed a somewhat chronic cough (i.e. the Shanghai cough) that will more than likely clear up once I'm no longer exposed to terrible air. A fever on the other hand is a very serious matter.

I woke up Saturday morning with a terrible headache and feeling lethargic so I took DayQuil so that I could function during my 9am piano lesson. But, by the afternoon I developed a temperature of about 101.6 degrees. The rest of the day pretty much sucked, but the temperature went down below 100 degrees before I went to bed for the night. When I woke up this morning, I still had a slight temperature so I went to the doctor with the assistance of the amazing welfare officer Shane provided us all with, Annie.

Upon arrival at the hospital the lady behind the counter produced a glass mercury thermometer, from where exactly I cannot say that I know, and told me to stick it under my tongue for 3 minutes. After I popped the thermometer in my mouth, figuring that whatever temperature I still had might kill any germs on it, hopefully. Direct quote - Annie: "I know you want to ask me if it's clean. Bernessa, she asked me that when the had to do this [and points at me holding the thermometer in my mouth]". Gah! Temperature: 100.7 degrees

Then, I saw the doctor. I sat down and with Annie's interpretation skill I answered the questions he posed. He produced a tongue depressor from where I am not exactly sure and checked my throat. And maybe a total of five minutes later he wrote out a prescription. Then, he pointed us towards the cashiers window and the prescription window.

What exactly is wrong with me? I don't know. I guess from the medicine he prescribed me that it's just a cold. Check it out: