I managed to eat toast today!

(Warning: I'll do a bit of random rambling in this blog post)

Yes, I did it, ate toast today. Now, it might not seem much to blog about, but for me it was a major breakthrough since I haven't eaten almost anything since Sunday. Lil man brought some nasty stomach virus from playschool and it hit me with full force. I've now discovered a reoccurring pattern; lil man gets some sort of kiddie virus from daycare/playschool, gets sick, gets better and then I get really really sick. Husband isn't affected. I don't know why this happens, because I haven't been a "sickly" person before, but I'm assuming its because I never went to daycare and don't have any immunity against these viruses.

Either way the constant throwing up got me thinking of the time when I was pregnant and of one specific incident in particular, as before last Sunday that was the last time I felt like this (and no, I'm not pregnant now, this time it's a stomach bug :). As some of my readers might have read from earlier entries I had a bit of complicated pregnancy.  Basically I threw up most of my time being pregnant, spend several days at the hospital on IV and ended up having to take anti-nausea medication meant for cancer patients since I became so thin and the IV wasn't enough. My host-mom was battling breast cancer at the same time and we had the same medication - we both thought it was pretty weird. 

This incident I mentioned happened during one of my hospital stays, pre-medication. One of the nurses was really concerned about me (since I was "in a foreign country without Mom"...) and thought that the reason I was so skinny was because I couldn't afford food. How she came to this conclusion, I've never understood, maybe I looked homeless or something, should probably pay more attention to how I dress, eh? :)  I tried to tell her that I have enough money for food, so she asked me how much I earned. Well, I earned minimum wage and she said that was not enough. I said I had savings and started getting a bit angry, because clearly she thought I was not telling the truth. She said she'd contact social services and get me some help, which I absolutely forbade her from doing. I tried to calm myself down and explain that this really wasn't about money, I had enough of it. For example, I was at the hospital with my laptop, if I couldn't afford food, I probably would not have a laptop right? In the end she got all teary-eyed and said she was just concerned about me, since I was such a sweet child (I was 30). I was still at the hospital when her shift ended and she came to personally say goodbye to me and as I mentioned in my previous entry, kissed me on the cheek and said if she could, she would adopt me :D

Needless to say this was one of the most bizarre experiences I've had in the U.S, and I've often wondered why she thought that my emaciated state was due to lack of access to food. Maybe this was a "common" problem among expectant mothers, which is a really disturbing thought. In the county where we lived, 13,8% of the population lives below poverty level, so I guess there was a chance I was so poor that I couldn't afford food. And I was unmarried at the time, and foreign, so chances of me being among the poorest of poor were probably higher. In the end I came to the conclusion that she was just a very caring person, who thought I was much younger than I was, and my skeletal state alarmed her quite a bit. Maybe she was just not accustomed to seeing people this thin, since obesity is a problem in Nebraska. Either way, it was a really strange incident, one that I'm not likely to forget.

To end this rambling blog post (I've been feverish as you can probably tell) on a happier note, I might add that we did indeed find a new playschool for our little man and despite bringing home the annoying stomach bug, he really likes it there :)

Wishing everyone a wonderful, and healthy, week!