Deep Sigh #989 - Everyone's a Doctor

I've been hit with a series of illnesses lately, most likely my body punishing me for all the fun I had while traveling all summer.  The most recent blow is a case of tonsillitis, with a side of fever, chills, body aches and pains.

Now I'm usually not a wuss when it comes to illnesses.  My philosophy has always been: it's always good to let your body battle it rather than going to the doctor and getting over medicated.  But this has been a most severe case of a sore throat I've ever had, so I finally succumbed and was prescribed a shitload of medication.

The Taiwanese like to overmedicate.  

But what's worse than the whole process of going to the doctor and getting a list of pills to swallow, is the horde of people you know who all think they have a cure for you.

"Drink hot water!"
"Drink cold water!"
"Warm milk with honey!"
"Jump up and down and hold your breath!"

I'm sure we've heard all these goofy suggestions from people before.

Apparently everyone thinks they are Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and like to offer their two cents on not only what is ailing you, but how you can be cured if you follow their instructions to the letter.

As an example, my Dad loves to both diagnose and prescribe.  Before my real M.D. used science to determine that I had a nasty throat infection, my Dad took to WebMD and thought that the most likely cause of my sore throat was a nasty cold that I must have gotten from my Aunt who just recently came back from Thailand and threw a whole stack of pills from his leftover medication cabinet.  Not only am I sure that taking old medication is not the healthiest of decisions, but I'm not sure why he thought it necessary to horde medication in this manner rather than finishing it off as you're supposed to do when battling infections.  However, this is good to know if a zombie apocalypse happens and I need to stock up on some Nyquil.

Then there's my teacher who believes in more traditional means of medicine.  Coincidentally, our class has been learning about "Being Sick" as a unit in our Mandarin course, so she's let us know some of her ways to get rid of headaches like eating a 1/3 of a clove of garlic.  It's apparently the same cure for when you have way too many friends and want people to stay away from you.  She also wanted us to squeeze our thumbs and big toes really hard every 10 minutes for an hour because those are the pressure points that help relieve tension in your head.  It's also very practical to do, you know in the middle of a meeting, to excuse yourself as you need to massage your big toe because the subject matter of that meeting is giving you a migrane.

While I understand everyone is trying to help a person who's suffering, it is best to leave health matters in the hands of the professionals.  That Robitussin Dr. Mom campaign really gave everyone way too much confidence that they are anywhere close to being a certified doctor.

'Mo Tussin! - oh, Chris.

Now I must go and dab my head with a cold wash cloth to help me calm down from this rant.

DEEP SIGH.  (COUGH COUGH)...


 

Deep Sigh #990 - Oreo Teeth

Apologies for the lack of blogs recently - I had a short recess of a couple of weeks as I adjust to being a student once again (Ah, see what I did there?  Recess and School?  Not funny?  Fine.)  I'm sure in the coming weeks, I'll have some awesome Deep Sighs about student life.

This post was inspired by my early morning semi-drunk craving for food.  Without a Mickey Ds near my house, Plan B was to raid the cupboard for anything that could satisfy my hunger.  The cupboard was pretty disappointing.  Having not grocery shopped in a couple of weeks, there was a package of  Chinese rice crackers and a box of Oreos that I bought from a few weeks ago.  After a brief internal battle between my Western and Asian self, my Canadian side won.  The box of Oreos it was.

I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this because who does not like Oreos?  Flashback to my first ever experience (six years old) with the awesome chocolate icing-filled cookie, I remember eating an entire row of them and consequently throwing it all back up in a wonderful display of black and white colours into the toilet bowl.  If it wasn't so disgusting, it would have made for an amazing Rorscharch image.  Don't get me wrong, even with the sugar high induced vomiting, there was still a lot of love for the delicious sandwich cookie.

Return to the present where I've poured a glass of milk, opened the box of Oreos and proceed to decimate half the box; stopped only by the sound of a growling stomach (DEEP SIGH #989 might be for Lactose Intolerance).

No, Asian Oreos do not taste any different.  They are just smaller and more efficient.

The consequence of this spontaneous Oreo binge is what I like to call Oreo Teeth - where the delicious cookie crumbs have trapped itself in every valley of your teeth and smeared itself all over your once pink tongue.  The task of getting rid of Oreo teeth is quite the chore.  Three brushings later, I still couldn't shake loose some of the dark dots on my teeth (even with my power toothbrush) and having used the tongue scraper twice, my tongue still looked like one of the fifty shades of grey.

The only thing that saves this Deep Sigh from becoming a Super Deep Sigh is at least I was eating Oreos before going to bed and not before an important event such as the following (some of which I have done before):

- Client Dinner
- Job Interview (DAMN BREAKFAST CRAVING FOR OREOS!)
- A Date
- A Date that leads to other things (wink wink)
- A Dentist Appointment (they'll clean it out anyways, right?)

So to you Oreo, as much as I have deep love and passion for your deliciousness, it pains me to get you out of my system.

DEEP SIGH.