Over the Hump

Well, I'm well past my three-month depression now. I stopped being
angry at every little thing some time last week. My depression,
however, was replaced with something else that I get every once in a
while in Asia -- food poisoning.

I grew up in a very clean environment in North America. Even with all
the hygiene there, I still managed to get sick fairly often. I guess
my immune system just isn't as strong as some people's. Combine the
weaker immune system with a million kinds of Asian bacteria and
viruses which my body has never encountered, and you get food
poisoning or some other major illness a few times a year.

I try not to miss work over these because they aren't really
contagious to Asians, but Friday was a different matter. I can't teach
with diarrhea and vomiting. In fact, I could barely stand up on
Friday.

I'm happy that I had a million different vaccines while I was in the
U.S. Army. Because I was with Special Forces, I traveled to Asia often
and received vaccinations for most of the really bad diseases here:
yellow fever, dengue fever, typhoid, tuberculosis, and many others. I
had three vaccination boks full of the vaccine stamps.

None of the vaccines stop the random Asian virus or bacterium, though.
Those guys just walk on through my immune system like they had a
security pass for unlimited access to my body.

All this means that I need to be very careful about what I eat. I used
to be reckless, going to anywhere in China, Thailand, or Laos and
eating anything off the street. I did that until I had gotten deathly
ill two or three times. Now, I'm much more careful about where and
what I eat.

If the food has been boiled or fried, I'm generally safe, but raw and
rare food scares me here. I stay away from shellfish, innards like
liver and brains, and blood because those things spoil so quickly. I
do what I can to look at how the food is handled in the kitchen. I try
to cook my own food as often as possible.

Even though I was careful, I think I got food poisoning from a local
restaurant whose name I won't mention. They are generally very clean
and probably just made a little mistake somewhere. I may not eat there
for a little while, though.