I got sick a lot in Korea. Some of it can be written off to teaching kids. Other times due to environmental factors such as "yellow dust" or just plain old air pollution. I got a LOT of sinus infections living in Korea which my ENT Doctor blamed on the air pollution. Then there was cellulitis. I got that at least once a year my last 4 years in Korea. The 1st time was the worst because I didn't know what it was and ignored it for a long time. According to my doctor cellulitis is common in Korea. I blame the damn mosquitoes while my doctor blamed bug bites and ... pollution. No wonder so many Koreans wear surgical masks when they go outside.
I have been home almost a year now. It will be a full year a week from now. Since I have returned I haven't really been sick. I haven't had any major sinus infections. I haven't had any cellulitis. Hell, I even shed a lot of weight. Strangely enough, with my 1 year anniversary home looming, this is one of the first things that came to mind.
I remember that cough. I had it for months after my first year. It just went on and on. For a while there, the phlegm I brought up was black, which says something about what I was breathing.
ReplyDeleteHave you had the cough since going home?
ReplyDeleteI have it now.
ReplyDeleteDamn.
ReplyDeleteThat damned cough! It gets worse during the yellow sand months and seems to hang on for a long time afterwards.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the pollution here is the cause of my skin aging so rapidly too. When I first came here I looked about 10 years younger than my real age, but in two years I feel like I've aged 20 years just because of the crappy air quality (I'm right in the middle of Seoul) and so now I look a decade older than my real age. I sometimes wonder if moving back to Canada would reverse the aging process and maybe I'd go back to looking younger again.
Moving back has me a lot healthier than I was in the last 10 years.
ReplyDelete