Food Poisoning

Never in my life have I suffered from food poisoning. Sure, there have been the occasional meals which didn’t agree with me, but my feelings of discomfort always vanished by sunrise. Well the Saturday before last, my discomfort didn’t vanish and to be perfectly frank, these feelings are still around over a week later.

The Saturday before my brother’s arrival, Eric surprised me with plans for a date night filled with Italian food, cappuccinos, and a few hours on the town. The evening was fantastic, the food was delicious, and it was nice to do something outside the confines of our tiny apartment. However, towards the end of dinner I began to feel sick. My feelings of illness intensified quickly and we were forced to end our evening early. Knowing it was too early to be the food we just ate, I thought back to what I had that day that Eric hadn’t to find the culprit; a ham sandwich. In order to spare you the details, I will just say I spent the rest of the night and the entire next day rolled in a ball due to extreme stomach pain, only to break this position to shuffle to the bathroom.

Monday came, and despite not feeling well, I went to school. Why, you may ask. Well, in Korea there are no such things as sick days or substitute teachers. So if a teacher is ill and chooses not to come it, all of the other teachers must take over his/her classes, paperwork, and other school time duties. Needless to say, it is always advised to come in, do what you can, and spare you co-workers the added effort. As lunchtime rolls around on Monday, the vice principal makes an announcement, one which I don’t understand, so I ask my friend Sue what’s going on. Well apparently the cafeteria is closed for the remainder of the week due to many students reporting cases food poisoning. So it wasn’t the ham sandwich which had me keeled over all weekend, but rather Friday afternoon’s lunch. Missing lunch for that day, and the rest of the week, was not a big deal since I could hardly stomach anything other than a few pieces of toast. In fact, it has been over a week since initially getting sick and I still cannot eat a meal without getting ill. I am hoping this changes soon because I am tired of being tired as well as I am running out of holes on my belt to hold up my jeans and trousers. Obliviously I need to get my hands on some medicine to help me get better, but you tell what the better option is: explaining and motioning my symptoms to a colleague and have her write my symptoms in Korean or motioning my symptoms to a random pharmacist. Oh the joys of not having enough language skills to verbally communicate my situation! It’s a good thing I don’t take myself too seriously!