Doctor, Doctor ... I'm in Russia.

What a week.  Unfortunately I’ve been a bit ill these past few days.  What I keep realising though, is that in dear Russia, one cannot simply be slightly under the weather.  You’re either made of steel or on death's door, with no middle ground.  Some of you may recall me chatting about several of Natasha’s trusted remedies for various ailments.  Just to refresh, here is the latest round-up of...

Natasha’s Medical Miracles (last reviewed April 2012)

Case #1 – The common cold: drink vodka mixed with pepper, followed by a mug of sugary tea.  Lie under the duvet until you sweat out your cold.

Case #2 – Diarrhoea: eat a bowl of blueberry jam.

Case #3- Nausea: Take grass tablets and eats as much as possible.

Case #4 – Toothache: drink champagne and eat chocolate.  Possible cause, having a cold foot.

Case #5 – Headache: drink very sugary tea and a shot of cognac.  Follow with ice-cream.

Case #6 – High blood pressure: Take antispasmodic drugs.  Fill a plastic bottle with hot water and put on your legs.

Case #7- Blocked nose: Fill the nose with garlic.

Case #8 – Sore throat: Drink hot milk, mixed with Dutch aniseed tablets and honey.

So naturally, over the past two days I’ve had Natasha fussing over me a lot.  I’d been feeling unwell for the whole week but taking into account the aforementioned list of previous healthcare advice I had received, I decided to hide it for as long as possible.  When I came home yesterday feeling really rough, I knew I’d blown my cover.  Natasha finds out I’m not feeling well and immediately phones up Valera, her boyfriend in St Petersburg.  He is a doctor, so is of course very qualified to give people health advice.  But with all due respect, he doesn’t know my medical history or...who I am in general.  So Natasha is nattering on the phone to him, not listening to anything I’m saying to her.  She comes off the phone with a decisive look on her concerned face and says: “Take this tablet. You have to.”  I answer: “What is it?” To be reassured with “It is called ‘No-Shpa’, it is known by the whole world.  It is Indian.”  After a lot of doubt from my side and having to bite my tongue in order not to get into an argument, I reluctantly swallowed the tablet under Natasha’s watchful eye.  She said, “It stops spasms”.  She then took my blood pressure three times and established that  it was high and that I was in danger.   She told me to go and lie down for an hour and then we’d reassess my blood pressure.  Sure enough, after an hour nothing had changed whatsoever.  Just to add, my symptoms were a headache and feeling sick.  How we got to this stage in Natasha’s medical assessment, I do not know.  I, in the meantime, decided to google the tablet I had just taken.  I might be wrong, but from what Wikipedia tells me, this is indeed an antispasmodic drug..but one that is used to assist in cervical dilation in labour and is sometimes used with sufferers of Irritable Bowels Syndrome. 

I have been having some very frustrating conversations with Natasha about medication.  Basically,  I’m taking a nightly migrane preventative and it’s not the kind of medicine you can stop taking immediately.  I was trying to tell her, that I have to be careful what other medicines I take because of what I am already prescribed.  Natasha categorically said that I must stop taking these immediately because they are giving me heart problems.  I quote: “These tablets are not prescribed in Russia.  If they were, it would be a scandal. Your doctor in England is wrong.”  So sitting there, nauseously, in quite possibly one of the most scandalous countries there is, I found the courage to nod and smile and finally sloped off into my room.  The next thing I hear, is that she has informed our neighbour Ludmila of my situation, who comes up to have her say in the matter.  I thought things had got ridiculous enough, but Natasha has found her own solution to my ‘problem’.  She wants to send me to have a cardiogram.  I wanted to laugh, cry and run away all at the same moment.  I literally have never heard someone blow a headache so out of proportion.  Yes, I did feel pretty ill...but I can’t help it if I’m not as much of a hypochondriac as the rest of Russia! When I got home from school today, she told me that if I continue to take my prescribed tablets, my veins will snap.  I think that just about sums up my year abroad really.  When I went to school, I heard Natasha had rung our teacher Anna, to share the story. Anna informs me that I’m likely to have a stroke.

So just to sum up, I’m very grateful that Natasha is worried about me and I know she thinks she has my best interests at heart.  But I couldn’t help but notice the irony in her panicking about my blood pressure, saying that I’m too stressed....whilst telling me she’s going to take me to get my heart checked at the hospital and that I’m putting myself in grave danger. 

Something seems fishy

So here I am, on the brighter side of whatever Russian lurg I’ve had this week, feeling happier and a bit more like my usual self.  I just had some 5-day old spaghetti and I'm loving life.  I’m not going to descend into food rants today, so don’t fear.  I’m just going to include a cheeky little pic of this week’s fish soup. I think most of you will appreciate the algae style layer on top.  I’ll say no more- I think a picture speaks a thousand words.

Anyway, the big event on Saturday was me and Emily going to Yaroslavl central station to buy various train tickets we need for the coming months.  We had both carefully written down every detail about our journeys so that we could hand the information to the lady at the desk.  As usual though, nothing is ever has straightforward as it seems.  We took such a long time, that they had to open a new ticket window for all the grunting Russians queuing behind us.  However, we came away with tickets in our hands.  We’re pretty sure we’re going to the necessary destinations, but the type of train and type of seat you book isn’t always apparent until you turn up. Fingers crossed!

A ticket to St Petersburg.

Right now, despite the persistent ice and fur hats, the sun is shining beautifully and the sky is blue so I can’t complain about that.  To lift my spirits even more, it’s April! At the end of next month, I will officially be able to say that I’ve done my year abroad.  Mental.  But in the here and now, what have we learnt this week?  If you find yourself needing a drug to assist with cervical dilation, ask your doctor for ‘No-shpa’.  If you realise that this medical sensation hasn’t quite made it from India to England yet, I’ll take orders.  Good old Russia, always at the medical foreground.

Laters!