Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Vol. CLIV, Issue 6
Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

So THIS is what it feels like…

It began with a stomachache. Then it got much worse. As I woke up to the 4:30am call to prayer Monday morning, I felt a jabbing pain in my abdomen. My body was fevering and I couldn’t keep any water down. “So this is what travelers sickness feels like,” I thought as I laid in bed, pretending like it would just go away if I could simply fall back to sleep. But I couldn’t, and the pain was too much to handle. I needed help.

I woke up my host mama and after a few phone calls, she got my study abroad program to send a taxi to escort me into the Arab Medical Center emergency room. And man, what a nice hospital! The nurses and doctors all spoke English and they took care of me right away. I’ll avoid all the graphic details but the process involved a IV with a myriad medicines. The doctors told me that I had a gastrointestinal infection, either viral or bacterial (I don’t really remember much of that time because I was so out of it). When I got home, I could already feel my stomach settling. My mama, what a darling, went out and bought 7up (which was spelled with arabic letters that I am pretty sure aren’t real which likely means the company created the ‘v’ and ‘p’ letters so its name could be pronounced correctly or someone else did at one point) and she made me a vegetable rice soup. Although I ate only little, it felt nice to finally have food in my system after a day of avoiding it.

Well, at this point you’re probably wondering, “Why did you get sick Nick?!” which is an explanation I have been trying to avoid out of embarrassment. But here I go. On Sunday I had my first Peer Tutor meeting – a program where I get matched up with a University of Jordan student to hang out with and practice Arabic with every week. Sunday’s activity involved a scavenger hunt downtown, in which we had buy certain things, eat somethings, and take goofy pictures. I still don’t understand why I didn’t realize it was a bad idea when my peer tutor, Yousef, handed me fresh juice so we could mark that find off our list. As you can imagine, it was that juice that f-ed me up all over the place. Ok, phew I’m done telling that story. Each of my host siblings and aunts gave me the 20 questions last night and each time I got the head shake and clicking of the tongue of “oh no you didn’t”.

But if I have gained anything from this experience its these two things. First, I will never leave my guard down again when it comes to food. It’s been two weeks now and I feel as though the comfortable state is starting to set in on that issue. But I need to remember that I am just a visitor – my body is not like the average Jordanian and I need to be careful. The second is the information about the hospital system in Jordan. When my nurse was giving me my IV, we chatted about how competitive being a doctor is in Jordan. Remember when I mentioned in my last post about how to go to the University of Jordan one needed a relatively high score on the state exam. Well, to even be considered for medical school one would need a 97% on their state exam! I also found out that doctors go straight from high school into medical school, skipping the undergraduate phase we have to go through in the states. For the purpose of going straight into one’s career this process would be great – but I have valued my undergraduate education and out of classroom learning so much that skipping it entirely would not fit me well.

Today my fever finally broke and I ended up going to class. My stomach is starting to feel better, but eating much is still far from what I want to do. But little by little I am starting to regain my normal self, even if I look like death still. But one way of looking at it, at least I am well enough to share my story with you all!

 

Till next time inshallah, salaam.

 

 

 

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

All Whitman Wire Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *