The Life of a Teacher

Since I started teaching…even when I was student teaching…I have been much more prone to getting sick because of my wonderful germ-ridden munchkin students who just love to slobber, stick their fingers up their noses and in their mouths, and then so kindly and lovingly give me a high-five. But since I’ve started teaching kindergartners in Shanghai, I’ve been sick pretty much all the time, with cold symptoms always hanging around. But recently, it all came to a head. I woke up Saturday morning and I couldn’t open my left eye. Curious…in my still tired and confused state, I rubbed my eye pretty furiously and it finally opened with a bit of gucky resistance. I took a glance in the mirror and saw that my eye was crusty and pussy around the edges and lashes, and was uber red. At least it was only in one eye…oy.

I made sure to wash my eye and my hands frequently. I checked on-line to see what I was in for. Some seemingly reliable source said it should be cleared up within 3-5 days, even with no medicine, especially if it was viral (which, according to the infallible internets, applied to me). I emailed my boss and let her know my condition and that I might need to miss a day of work (that day being Tuesday since I already had Monday off due to some random Chinese national holiday). But I never got a response. After a couple of days of hanging out with some Suzhou friends (with caution, I assure you), I re-contacted my boss to try and find out what was what, seeing as my eye was still scarily red. She said I needed to see a doctor and so I did. And lo and behold, I received good news from the medical genius at the local eyes, ears, nose and throat hospital. He gave me two kinds of eye drops to take every two hours (which have really been helping lessen the redness and the itchy pain), AND he said that I would need another 3 DAYS REST. Yup. No work until Friday. One day work week…not too bad. My boss wasn’t too happy because she needed to find a quick substitute for 3 days. But what could I do? Doctor’s orders…

I still have another 2 days of chillin’ out and recovering. I really can’t complain (well, sans red itchiness I could deal with, but I’m not complaining). Jon is a little afraid of my contagiousness, but I have been super careful and I haven’t touched my eye ONCE! I’m pretty proud of myself.
The kicker now is that I’m also having more cold symptoms (coughing, sore throat…), so the trio combo of back/hip pain, conjunctivitis, and a cold is rocking me pretty hard. But I’m staying pretty positive, and enjoying the time off (even though I don’t get paid for days missed), so all is relatively well.

Take care all, and be careful around snotty kids (pun intended?).
Em