I wrote this pretty much forever ago...

Here is the funny story for the day*: So I woke up unreasonably early this morning, as usual (about 5am). I plugged myself into my ipod to listen to a little more audiobook and try to lull myself back to sleep. Once it was about time to actually get up, I felt this little pain on my lower lip. A couple of minutes later, I touched my lip, and realized that it was swelling up. Huh. A couple MORE minutes later, I felt it again, and realized that it was getting even bigger. I freaked out a little bit, went into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror, and freaked out some more, because I was starting to LOOK freaky.

I had been lying under my mosquito net when it happened, so I was convinced that something terrible and poisonous had attacked me, and that either my lip was going to continue to get bigger, like as big as my face, or that I was going to go into convulsions and die soon.

I made the frantic and tearful phone calls to my dear ones in the States, and then went next door to my coworker’s room to show her what was happening to my face. They all soothed me and told me that it was very unlikely that I was going to die, that the swelling would go down with a little Benadryl, and that if I started to have any adverse reaction I could go see a doctor. No biggie. (Ilene even told me that I looked cute, kind of like a botoxed movie star.)

Obviously, there was no adverse reaction. The bump on my lip, however, DID end up taking over most of the lip. I had to go meet with a bunch of people that I don’t know very well (one or two for even the first time), pretending like it was no big deal that I suddenly had this HUGE LIP, and tried not to spill coffee all over myself when I found that the bump got in the way of the coffee actually going into my mouth.

Now, this evening, my lip is practically back to normal. And I’m feeling a lot less freaked out. (Thanks, dear ones!)

It is kind of funny how sensitive I am to things like that when I travel. In the US my hypochondriasis is much less acute, but when I’m here, the smallest little symptom makes me so nervous. With my one experience with medical care in India, plus the fact that lack of proper medical care is a huge concern in these rural areas that we are visiting, I get these visions of being sick and stranded and helpless. But I’m not sick, nor am I stranded, nor am I helpless. I think I might be kind of a weenie.

In other bite-related news, I am learning to exercise self-control and to NOT scratch my zillion mosquito bites, even though they are very very itchy…right now…self control…


* funny to me now, at least