Humorous Week

Last Friday I took the day off because I’ve accumulated some comp time and if I don’t use it, I lose it. But I came in to cash a check and send a draft of the school board minutes I had forgotten to do the day before. Sure enough! In come the patients. I kept trying to deflect but they had issues that required my attention. My co-worker was great in seeing most of them but I still became involved. So the day off turned out to be a working day and the jokes been on me ever since.

I caught a strange illness. Nothing specific. A lot od vague symptoms which bring patients into the clinic but drive health practitioners crazy. "Feeling blazay" is the only way to describe it. Sunday was a low energy day. I forced myself to go into work on Monday since my symptoms were "nothing." Then, during a meeting, I suddenly felt I might throw up. A few beltches produced a few surprises but I managed to keep it all down until the meeting was out.

My illness resolved itself but the kids got sick. First Stefan got a bad cold with a cough. He burned up with fever and stayed home 3 days. Half way into it, Camille came down with the same thing. Dina had to stay at home and play nurse (I love that image) while I dealt with work, patients, insurance companies (would you believe a Foreign Service plan that won’t ship overseas), and meetings.

Yesterday it got busy with patients. My co-worker ordered some take out from a local Nigerien restaurant. We split some rice with spicy chicken and were sitting outside in the shade of a mango tree. I was about to eat my food when a pigeon dropped it’s poop right onto my food! We salvaged most of it but somehow I lost my appetite.

Today is only a half day here at the embassy. We were trying to tidy things up in preparation for an inspection coming up and a visit from my mentor. We finally completed eliminating all expired pharmaceutical medications and had to flush the old meds and narcotics down the toilet. The first flush eliminated the over-the-counter meds without any problems (leave the best for last). But when we filled the bowl with the narcotics, the toilet wouldn’t flush. The water to the embassy was turned off by the water company. No one knows why or for how long. It’s not that I think for one second that someone is going to take those meds floating in the toilet of the womens bathroom to get high. It just looks funny when you see all those colored pills. I signed the waste since I witnessed it (sort of).