Life back in America

I’m the sort of person that weird things just happen to.  Only they happen at a rate much slower in America than in Africa.  So instead of blogging daily, I’ll have to blog bi-monthly just to keep things interesting.

……………………………………………………..

The Friday I returned to America was a bittersweet day.  Sweet things like my fiancé waiting for me at the airport with sunflowers, Chuy’s Salsa, and figuring out stuff for school.

Bitter things like staring at my phone for 5 minutes trying to remember how I call someone.

It’s crazy what being away from your phone for 2 months will do to you.

I’d like to add that it only took me a few weeks to remember to take it with me everywhere.

……………………………………………………….

I jumped back into real life first thing Monday morning.  I was assigned to work at Pediatrics of Dallas which is in WAY south Dallas, where all the signs are in Spanish. 

I was looking for 201 W Saner avenue.  I looked for about 20 minutes before deciding to call and ask for directions.  It shouldn’t be that hard to find, right?

So I called the office.  The recording picked up.  “…You’ll find us at our new address 3201 W Saner avenue.  Right.   3201.  Not 201.  Somehow I dropped the 3.  And lost about 20 minutes of my life.  Good….

I finally made it.  I jumped right in following a PA around for the first day to figure out what was going on.  Why is American medicine so different?  It might have been easier to figure out if people weren’t speaking Spanish.  Only Spanish.

I went from speaking Swahili for survival to speaking Spanish.  Which I’m pretty pathetic at. 

I am good at smiling at the kids.  That crosses all languages.

I was waiting for my preceptor to finish looking over a UA (urinalysis) with her MA (medical assistant) when this little girl looked around the corner and smiled at me.  Then she quickly hid her head again.  Kids are shy.  She peaked out again.  I smiled again.  She said hi.  I said hi back.  She hid again.  She peaked out again.  She said hi, my name is “Princessa” (not her real name, HIPAA would hunt me down if I used her real name).  I said “Hi Princessa, my name is Shannon.”

And just like that, I had a new friend.

………………………………………………………

So in Tanzania there was this mouse that ate my Oreos.  It was one of the many tragedies I faced over there.  (only it’s a bit more lighthearted)  We got really excited about a lot of little things-especially food- because we ate a lot of rice and beans.  So when I got a package of Oreos and so did Julia, we saw this as a golden opportunity.  We split one package then and saved one for later!

Only the mouse got into Julia’s suitcase and devoured it first.

And we know it was a mouse because it had the nerve to jump out of her suitcase at her.

Rude.

So anyway, because of this silly mouse, I bought packaged cookies (A tragedy, if you ask me) because I really just needed to eat 2 oreos.  And if you buy Oreos, you need to buy milk.  And then you need to dunk them in milk for precicely 11 seconds.

Thanks mouse.

……………………………………………………………

The first Monday I returned, we had Girls night at small group because half the girls weren’t able to make it.  We talked about some pretty funny/scandalous things.  Here’s a preview:  “Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

I’ll let you fill in the details….

……………………………………………………………..

I realize I’m a champion at putting off paper re-writing.  I was running out of important things to do and blog about, so I resorted to waxing a test section of leg.

My roommate was thouroughly disgusted by the length of the hair on my legs.  I think she just needs to become a bit more feminist and be less conforming to society.  But it’s her life.  Anyway, after about a month of not shaving (because we wore floor length skirts every day---no need to impress anyone) I decided I would try to wax my legs when I got back to America.  After not shaving for 7 weeks, it’s pretty liberating and I wasn’t about to be tied down to shaving again right away.

The test run went well.  I waxed my left ankle.  One day later things were still golden, so I decided to wax my entire legs.

Before I realized just how big my legs are.

I did the bottom half of both legs, and I got pretty good at it.  But since the bottom half is smaller and it took me 2 hours, I decided to just shave the top half of my legs.

Just in case you’re curious, waxing is definitely worth it.

If you can stand the 2 seconds of pain every other minute.

…………………………………………………………..

At my mentor’s request, I was charged with the task of removing the word “it” from my paper.  Half a million times.

I feel like “it” is a valid pronoun.  Sometimes you just need to use pronouns, right?  Like if I keep saying “the study was good.  The study was professionally done.  The study is going to get boring.  I need to say IT isn’t that exciting.”  Except I can’t use IT.

But I’m not bitter about IT or anything.

………………………………………………………………

At the request of my fiancé, I agreed to watch both Harry Potter #7 movies back to back with him.  I made the stipulation that I needed popcorn.

And Cherry Garcia Fro Yo.

And pizza.

It was actually a really good movie and we had a lot of fun.  And I fulfilled my need to eat food like a crazy American again.

……………………………………………………………….

One night we met Chris and Diana at Olive Garden, which I love (because of the salad) and I hadn’t eaten at in FOREVER since I’ve been gone.   That night I ate an entire bowl of salad by myself and we celebrating a birthday of my good friend who also happens to be an excellent English teacher.

She politely helped me edit my paper.  Since I hadn’t done such a good job by myself.

I got a “Much Better!!” (with 2 exclamation points) from my mentor, so I take it the editing job and painstakingly removing the word IT was worth IT.

………………………………………………………………..

Tuesday I received edited paper #2 from Jessica who also helped me edit.   The only thing she said in the body of her email was “Don’t freak out!”  That’s what you tell your parents when you get into a car accident, only you’re ok and everything, but it’s pretty bad news anyway.  What did she mean when she said “don’t freak out?!”  I’m pretty sure whenever anyone says that it only means the opposite.

Then, at work I saw a girl with Pinworms.  Eeew!

Pinworms are notorious for making your anus itch at night.  It’s because you’re all relaxed so they can crawl out and make you itch.  They can’t crawl out during the day because your muscles are too tense to let them crawl out.  But at night you relax a bit and so does your external anal sphincter and then the worms get to play.  We examined this poor girl and she had them crawling out during the day.  Meaning she was WAY overinfested with worms. 

It’s funny, I never saw pinworms in Africa, where they routinely de-worm the kids every 6 months because worms are so prevalent.  I waited till I came back to America and started working in a clinic in south Dallas.  That’s my life.

…………………………………………………………

At work one day there was a young girl with Type 2 Diabetes.  She was at least 150 pounds overweight for her age.  She had been warned in the past that she was severely obese and needed to lose weight for her health.  She had assured the doctor she would lose weight because she didn’t want to have to take medicine for diabetes.   

She had gained 10 more pounds in the past month and the doctor had decided to start her on diabetes medicine.  The doctor was explaining everything to her mother and she just started to cry.

Big. Fat. Tears. Rolling down her cheek.

I felt so sorry for her, I just wanted to reach out and hold her hand.  But she was across the room, and there was a lot of tension already.

Sometimes medicine is really hard.

…………………………………………………..

Finally, all 3 roommates were back in town.  We celebrated by eating Chuy’s and Fro Yo.  Classic American food. 

I was super excited about Chuy’s salsa and creamy jalapeno sauce.  Yum!

Howard was more excited about the Fro Yo.  Green Apple Tart Fro Yo.

She said “green apple tart is amazing” at least 100 times.  I’m not even exaggerating on this one.

How was I supposed to know she was obsessed with green apple?  Good to know.

…………………………………………………………..

No more than one week into working with the kids, I got sniffles.

Then came the sneezing and coughing. Just enough to be annoying, but not enough to give me a fever and excuse me from work. How lame.  If I’m going to be sick, I at least want to be really sick.

I guess it only takes gagging kids with a strep throat swab for 7 days before I catch their yucky germs.

And now I’m thanking God for NyQuil!!

…………………………………………………………