Unwell abroad

It's difficult enough to live in a foreign country where one has to adjust to the culture and the laws. One has to adjust to how people deal with each other and that includes socializing whether in the office, in school or just about anywhere except your own home. I lived abroad for 3 years so I should know. However, I believe things would be easier if there were no language barriers. Thus, I would like to believe that if one was staying abroad legitimately and had the skills or tools for him or her to have a decent job or post at school then being an English speaking country like the United States or Britain would beat staying in, say China or Saudi Arabai. It also helps if there were people like relatives or friends that one could consider as one's support group. These are supposed to help one cope with living abroad and possibly with limited comforts of home.

I state the above as I also wanted to articulate further that it is difficult to get sick while one is abroad and living by him/herself. There is the tendency to become depressed when one is sick and the lack of a support system would probably make it worse since there won't be anyone to provide assistance and one is left to fend for him/herself including getting medical attention if the sickness seems to be becoming more serious. Different countries will have different medical systems or set-ups. In Japan, there are many local clinics including those that are capable of handling maternity cases. There are also many big hospitals and most have state of the art equipment for diagnostics, out-patient and other services. However, since Japan has a comprehensive medical care system preventive care is widely practiced and it seems that relatively few have serious ailments like what one would find in developing countries and even developed countries that have comparable systems and technologies to their disposal.

I was lucky I didn't get sick when I was in Japan. The most serious ailment I had was conjunctivitis (sore eyes), which I had one summer and was able to shake off thanks to eye drops and constantly washing my eyes with cool clean water. It also happened during the summer break so I was able to take a few days off from going to our laboratory. Others were minor like the usual headaches or colds that sometimes were contracted during the change in seasons.

The Clairvoyant had not learn first hand how to deal with sickness in a foreign land. Fortunately for her, there is no language barrier in Singapore where English is a primary language. Further, there were many clinics that were accredited by her health care provider and she didn't have to go to a hospital. I felt bad not being able to be with her in her time of need as I knew it was so difficult to be at home and nursing yourself back to health. It didn't help that the weather was also gloomy last week and she had to go to a clinic while it was raining. What did work for us was that we both had good internet access and were able to talk via Skype and exchange messages via Black Berry messenger, tools that were not available years ago that now allow for easier communications.

I keep reminding the Clairvoyant to eat healthy and to get here exercise. She probably doesn't need to schedule the latter considering she regularly commutes to and from her office, and part of her routine requires her to walk a good distance every day. Our home also happens to be on the fourth floor of our building so she also has to climb the stairs, or the "stairmaster" as we call it. Still, a healthy diet is important especially since what we eat would help us resist sickness or infection. It's actually nice to be abroad and have a different perspective of things - as long as one doesn't get sick.