... is remarkably easier to deal with when you actually speak some Hungarian.
So I've spent the last two weeks feeling as if my ears were full and with sinus pressure. Wednesday I could barely breathe, but I still went into work because I had an open lesson. (Incidentally, it was an awesome open lesson! My boss, when I asked her if she had any advice for me, told me to keep doing exactly what I was doing. Yay.) Wednesday afternoon led to general feelings of awfulness, and then I started to cough, so I decided that I definitely needed to head into the doctor.
On Thursday I walked the 15 minutes to the nearest city health center. After some trouble with paperwork, I amazingly didn't even have to wait to be seen. An ENT doctor and a nurse took care of me, and tutted over me, and scolded me for not having come in sooner. I even got my face x-rayed, which was sort of awkward as I had to sit perfectly still with my nose against a board and my mouth hanging open.
The eventual diagnosis was, in the words of my doctor, the "háromság," which means the trinity. I had acute maxillary sinusitis, a middle ear infection, and inflamed tonsils. The coughing, it turns out, was just from a mild chest cold. An hour after I walked in, I was out the door, clutching a variety of prescriptions in my hand.
I know I've discussed this before, but in America we tend to have one or two medicines that combine different medications. Not so in Hungary. So, to treat my general face infection, I have to do the following:
So I've spent the last two weeks feeling as if my ears were full and with sinus pressure. Wednesday I could barely breathe, but I still went into work because I had an open lesson. (Incidentally, it was an awesome open lesson! My boss, when I asked her if she had any advice for me, told me to keep doing exactly what I was doing. Yay.) Wednesday afternoon led to general feelings of awfulness, and then I started to cough, so I decided that I definitely needed to head into the doctor.
On Thursday I walked the 15 minutes to the nearest city health center. After some trouble with paperwork, I amazingly didn't even have to wait to be seen. An ENT doctor and a nurse took care of me, and tutted over me, and scolded me for not having come in sooner. I even got my face x-rayed, which was sort of awkward as I had to sit perfectly still with my nose against a board and my mouth hanging open.
The eventual diagnosis was, in the words of my doctor, the "háromság," which means the trinity. I had acute maxillary sinusitis, a middle ear infection, and inflamed tonsils. The coughing, it turns out, was just from a mild chest cold. An hour after I walked in, I was out the door, clutching a variety of prescriptions in my hand.
I know I've discussed this before, but in America we tend to have one or two medicines that combine different medications. Not so in Hungary. So, to treat my general face infection, I have to do the following:
- take an antibiotic pill twice a day
- take an ampule of probiotics twice a day, to prevent the killer antibiotic from wreaking too much havoc on my system
- use a dropper to place three drops of a serum into each nostril three times per day
- gargle with a certain syrup, diluted in water, three times per day
- take an expectorant syrup that tastes of thyme three times per day
- point a hair dryer at my ears for five minutes per ear, three times per day
- take ibuprofen as needed
It's all a bit of a headache, but it was also all totally free. I also have to go back next Thursday so that she can check out my right ear when it's not infected. I just hope this all gets taken care of soon and my ears can be permanently empty-feeling for once!
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