How To Treat A Cold...Or Not?
NOTE: I wrote this more than a month ago, but in my sick-induced haze, I forgot to hit the publish button. Oops.
After sleeping almost the entire weekend, I'm finally climbing up the steep hill of good health. There's been a particularly strong virus going around. I watched one coworker after another succumb and felt a sense of growing doom, kind of like how I imagine characters in horror movies feel as their counterparts are taken out by axes and chain saws.
As I climbed on the bus to go home late Friday night, my hot, itchy eyes alerted me to the fact that it was finally my turn. I guess I wasn't the main character after all. I proceeded to cancel my plans (which included a Christmas party, so boo) and climb into bed, not to emerge again for another fourteen hours.
That's pretty much how I treat sickness, at least colds 傷風 soeng1 fung1. Either that or chicken noodle soup, but that's also hard to find unless you make it yourself. And you usually don't feel like whipping up a homemade meal when you're sick. Anyway, I think sleep, soup and tea are the best cures. Here in the 852, though, most of the populace has a slightly different approach.
Hong Kongers really, really love going to the doctor. Ok, I'm sure they don't really love it (who loves sitting in a waiting room of other sick people for an hour two just to talk to the doctor for three minutes in order to get your bundle of medicine), but they at least go all the time. Just a sneeze or two is enough to get people asking you to go to the doctor.
Now I may be biased, since I'm from the land of astronomical medical costs, but I don't really see any need to go to the doctor for something as small as a cold. You know what it is. You can either get some medicine from the pharmacy or you can just sleep until it goes away. Sleeping is more natural and more importantly, much cheaper.
My last job used to require doctor's notes, which kind of drove me crazy. I'd have to truck my tired, sniffling, miserable butt over to the cheapest doctor's office (NOT by my house, I might add) to sit around for an hour, probably getting infected by and/or infecting other waiting patients, until I could have a minute of the doctor's time. I kid you not, the doctor would usually give me five different packs of medicine plus a jug of cough syrup. I tried telling him that I didn't want the medicine, but that usually only resulted in him taking away one or two packs. Maybe. If I pleaded hard enough.
I did try taking the medicine once, but I had some allergic reaction to one of them (my whole nose immediately slammed shut and refused to decongest for a few hours) but since I had so many kinds of medicine, I couldn't pinpoint which one. Safer to just abstain.
So a piece of advice. If you're in the Fragrant Harbor, don't be a hero. There's a raging virus going around. Slap on a mask and save yourself fourteen-hour coma or a doctor's visit, whichever cure you choose.
After sleeping almost the entire weekend, I'm finally climbing up the steep hill of good health. There's been a particularly strong virus going around. I watched one coworker after another succumb and felt a sense of growing doom, kind of like how I imagine characters in horror movies feel as their counterparts are taken out by axes and chain saws.
As I climbed on the bus to go home late Friday night, my hot, itchy eyes alerted me to the fact that it was finally my turn. I guess I wasn't the main character after all. I proceeded to cancel my plans (which included a Christmas party, so boo) and climb into bed, not to emerge again for another fourteen hours.
That's pretty much how I treat sickness, at least colds 傷風 soeng1 fung1. Either that or chicken noodle soup, but that's also hard to find unless you make it yourself. And you usually don't feel like whipping up a homemade meal when you're sick. Anyway, I think sleep, soup and tea are the best cures. Here in the 852, though, most of the populace has a slightly different approach.
Hong Kongers really, really love going to the doctor. Ok, I'm sure they don't really love it (who loves sitting in a waiting room of other sick people for an hour two just to talk to the doctor for three minutes in order to get your bundle of medicine), but they at least go all the time. Just a sneeze or two is enough to get people asking you to go to the doctor.
Now I may be biased, since I'm from the land of astronomical medical costs, but I don't really see any need to go to the doctor for something as small as a cold. You know what it is. You can either get some medicine from the pharmacy or you can just sleep until it goes away. Sleeping is more natural and more importantly, much cheaper.
My last job used to require doctor's notes, which kind of drove me crazy. I'd have to truck my tired, sniffling, miserable butt over to the cheapest doctor's office (NOT by my house, I might add) to sit around for an hour, probably getting infected by and/or infecting other waiting patients, until I could have a minute of the doctor's time. I kid you not, the doctor would usually give me five different packs of medicine plus a jug of cough syrup. I tried telling him that I didn't want the medicine, but that usually only resulted in him taking away one or two packs. Maybe. If I pleaded hard enough.
I did try taking the medicine once, but I had some allergic reaction to one of them (my whole nose immediately slammed shut and refused to decongest for a few hours) but since I had so many kinds of medicine, I couldn't pinpoint which one. Safer to just abstain.
So a piece of advice. If you're in the Fragrant Harbor, don't be a hero. There's a raging virus going around. Slap on a mask and save yourself fourteen-hour coma or a doctor's visit, whichever cure you choose.
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