I was sick yesterday. Not laid flat in bed with a high fever sick, but a low grade fever, aches, and general feelings of misery.
I was scheduled to visit the maternal child hospital with the Maternal Child Health Professor- Mamusta Renas. I had been looking forward to this visit, and I was not going to miss it. We arrived at the hospital around nine in the morning. It was already full of patients - younger, pregnant women, children, older women with gynecological problems, and babies. We headed straight to the delivery room, where several nurses were working with patients. One woman was obviously in labor, and flashbacks to my own laboring days brought on waves of empathy. I wished I could coach her through the process and tell her how amazing she was, but "How are you?" and "Stop the mini bus!" and "That's way too expensive!" is the extent of my Kurdish.
It was as we were heading upstairs to the pediatric ward that I suddenly knew I was going to faint. I leaned against the wall, where a poster warning of the dangerous impact of violence in hospitals to patient care was hung. I thought I would slip to the ground and be completely out but I rallied enough to get to a room. I felt like the woman depicted in the poster - fearful and overwhelmed.
I sat down and drank some cold water, then put my head down. An overwhelming sense of failure added to my nausea and light head. It was awful.
Suddenly I questioned everything. Why did I think I had the capacity to make an international move? Who was I kidding? I was no use to anybody in my passport country, let alone a new place, new people, new job, new language. Plus, I was in the land of Nineveh, where fig trees dry up and wither. Isn't that what happened to Jonah?
Here I was, sitting in a hospital two hours from the nearest airport, interrupting the learning process of bright and lovely Kurdish students, while one of their teachers sat with me.
Why did I think I could do this?Physical well-being has a massive impact on our ability to adjust. I remember years ago in Pakistan someone talking to me about how she didn't know what was wrong. Why was she failing at everything she did? Why was she always tired? Why couldn't she keep up with even the small things of life? It turned out that my friend had a silent but deadly amoebae wreaking havoc with her body. She was not well. It had nothing to do with ability, or stamina, or resilience. It had everything to do with her physical state. She was diagnosed, given a prescription of that awful and necessary drug we call flagyl, and within one month she was a different person.
As a nurse, I know the importance of paying attention to my body. I also know the importance of not immediately googling my symptoms. I did it anyway. At a minimum I had the flu, with the most serious of my findings pointing to Hepatitis. Ridiculous? Yes, but sometimes we find ourselves giving in to these things.
Last night as tears began to fall over my fruit at dinner time, I didn't remember anything. I felt like a failure at every level.
So here are some tips for me to remember and maybe they will help you as well!
- If you're eating right, sleeping enough, and you still feel tired and that you can't cope - there may be something physically wrong. Get checked!
- You are not a failure. You are human, made of flesh and blood, cells and vessels. Sometimes you get sick. This happens in countries where you know the language perfectly, and in countries where you don't know the language at all. Take extra time to rest and get well.
- Everything is harder when you are sick. Language, understanding culture cues, figuring out food and food substitutes, even making a decent cup of tea feels harder.
- Give yourself space and a break. Cry. Sleep. Drink tea. Mourn and lament the world. Ask for help - such a difficult thing to do! Sleep some more.
- Sometimes it takes only a day to feel better.... other times it takes longer. I woke up this morning feeling so much better. I'm not at my full capacity, but I no longer feel like I'm going to faint. I don't have a fever. I see the world through a different lens and I clearly don't have the flu or hepatitis.
I'm in a different place today, but this will come again because of the 'flesh and blood, broken world, our bodies don't always cooperate' reality. And Grace enters this reality.
Grace - that space between failure and success, that space where cross-cultural workers are always invited into, a space that makes a burden light and a yoke easy.