herbie sosta

The eerie muscle pain on the left side of my body became a bit worrying. I assumed a spider had sunk it’s teeth into my back and it’s venom was slowing spreading to my chest. It persisted for five days when I finally ambled down to the Lamma Clinic. Yes, I succumbed to the same clinic with poor English and the tendency to shove you out the door with lots of acetaminophen. But no one complains about the less than ten minute wait-time and $5 USD fee for examination, meds, and doctor’s notes for paid sick leave.

Upon entering the doctor’s room with Maeli I said the usual Chinese good morning greeting. I like to start things off right, especially if I’m fishing for a doctor’s note. But in all truth, I wasn’t eager for sick leave. I was worried about spider venom and I figured this guy might have seen a case like mine before.

I showed him my “bites”. There were a cluster of three on my back and one under my armpit.

He examined them carefully and asked a bit more about my muscle pain.

In short order he pronounced my illness to be “herbie sosta.”

“Can you repeat that?” I asked politely.

“Oh yes,” he nodded. “herbeeeee sooostaaa.”

“Hmmmm.” My confusion was embarrassingly apparent. Then I quickly covered it up by asking, “Can you write it down for me?”

The doctor scribbled the words Herpes Zoster.

I exclaimed, “I have herpes!!!!!”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Herpes.”

Then he rattled off something about chicken pox to further my confusion.

Worried about my job, I explained how I worked with children.

“No problem. No problem,” he said.

And then I asked about Maeli.

“No problem. No problem,” he repeated.

To get me out of the room he asked, “You need a doctor’s note?”

I stood up to leave and said in Chinese, “No, thank you.”

When I got home with a bag full of meds, the trusty internet told me all I needed to know. I was beginning to suspect that I indeed had herpes zoster, which is commonly known as shingles.

So what is a 28 year old healthy woman doing with shingles? Isn’t this an old person’s illness?

A few days later I went to a doctor on Hong Kong Island. I waited an hour and a half to see him, and paid $60 USD for an examination, meds and a week long doctor’s note. I also paid to have a conversation in English.

“You can’t go to work with herpes zoster,” the doctor said in earnest. “You’ll give the whole school chicken pox and then all the parents will be very upset.”

I nodded my head.

It’s been one week since I saw the Lamma doctor. Considering that some people have severe pain with shingles, I’m not in too much discomfort. But I’ve also been laying in bed almost every day. I’ve read a 500 page novel and wish I had the whole summer off.

In the end I blame my shingles on stress. After all, I’m a stranger in a strange land, I don’t particularly enjoy my job, I am lucklessly searching for a new one, and to add insult to injury, it’s the rainy season.

No one said peregrination was easy.