- an embarrassing and/or horrible illness
- a bedroom to yourself
- a laptop
- almost no food
- 3 or 4 different doctors within walking distance of you house, most of them almost far away enough to take transportation. Almost.
- Skype
- Limewire
- several pairs of Pjs
- addiction to a TV show at least 6 seasons long.
What you can leave at home (ha):
- good health
- friends
- family members in the vicinity
- Mirrors (trust me)
- happiness
- clean sheets (that's right, ol' school)
This is just an example of how you could go about it.
1. Notice something is wrong, ignore it.
2. Realize you have a fever and are shaking and have no thermometer.
3. Spend around 45 minutes trying to figure out if your nice hippie family German doctor lady is open and realize she isn't and that you have to go to the "other one" a couple doors down from her.
4. Be mistaken for a crack addict.
5. Wait for an hour and 10 minutes in the waiting room in which you slowly make it from sitting in the chair to sitting on the floor to lying on the floor, to being asked to stop lying on the floor and finally to lying in the back until you see the doctor.
6. Be told you wouldn't know if you have a fever.
7. Be told your fever is 39.5 (103).
8. Remember you read you can get hallucinations at this temp, be disappointed and personally offended you aren't.
9. Be yelled at for not remembering the name of your last doctor or what street he was on (this was of course not Hippie family german doctor lady).
10. Be yelled at for not having anyone with you and think about how you would love to have someone with you.
11. Hear the doctor tell the next doctor that you can't speak German so gut. Be confused as to why you have to be labeled as not speaking German well but still have to listen to fast complicated medical German. Miss your nice hippie German doctor. Resolve not to get sick on a Thursday again.
12. Cry.
13. Make sure this doctor doesn't do anything helpful.
14. Be sent to another doctor.
15. This doctor can be nice, but she can't be helpful either.
16. Be sent to another doctor who will do something very painful and not immediately helpful to you.
17. Cry.
18. Come back the next day only then to go home and feel much worse and come back to have the worse thing in your entire life happen to you during which you must cry out in such pain that the children and adults in the waiting room lose all color in their cheeks.
19. Hate life.
20. Cry.
21. Continue to have a high fever every couple of days for the next 3-4 (god I hope not 5) days.
22. Skype with your parents who are more angry that they're not here than sympathetic.
23. Think about how maybe you need to step up the friend finding if no one has called you for a week, two weeks?
24. Think, in general, too much.
25. Use up most of your Gilmore Girl episodes.
26. Eat nothing because you have no food and would throw it up anyway.
27. Consider hiring a nurse every time you need to make yourself tea or get out of bed to change your sweaty Pjs or pee.
28. Download Salt-N-Pepa, want to be them.
29. Think about all the things you're missing that could have changed your whole future.
30. Cry.
31. Wonder if you died in you room if anyone would notice but your parents who expect constant updates.
32. Don't take movie recommendations from your mom.
33. Hate the gorgeous weather. But know that since it's going to rain tomorrow, you'll probably feel a little better then. (BUT YOU WON'T)
Oh, and be sure you try and make jokes with the German doctors who aren't having it. And for god sakes, don't be optimistic. And don't ever stretch your neck so it can get nice and bed-stiff. Maybe go to the grocery store once, but realize you only left with expensive tea because you were nauseous. And don't even get me started about how you didn't deal with the papers you need to get your money back from your mysterious private insurance...
That should about do it. Let me know if you have any questions.
Edit (Later that day at 20h):
34. Start talking to yourself in a mix of all the languages you don't really know and find it really funny.
35. Cry
36. Be annoyed that new fieber is only two points down from your record.
37. Eat your last popsicle.
38. Wonder who ate your popsicle. Think is was "those-damn-Germans"
