Wednesday, May 18, 2011

How do our stomachs do in the Middle East?

Yesterday I woke up to the violent sounds of bursting, spraying, gassy diarrhea coming from the boy’s bathroom. The first thought that went through my head was “Whoever it is, I hope he made it and is sitting on the toilet.” Turns out it was August, and he didn’t just have diarrhea, but was also throwing up. He spent pretty much the entire morning on the toilet, and then he came out, got cleaned up, and ate a Lebanese pizza, an apple, and had a soda. After lunch he played with the other boys, and read on the couch, and was… well, fine; back in business.
Over the years that we have lived in the Middle East we have come to accept and even expect that these kinds of episodes are a regular part of life - a nuisance, but nonetheless a recurring feature. Why do we get sick once in a while like this? As with anything, we’ve done extensive research, and the first times it happened, we had it checked out. The thing is though that it could be so many things, and although we do always take extra caution, it’s unavoidable. Unless it’s an epidemic or something that hits the entire family, it doesn’t much matter. It will usually just pass, and as long as we keep hydrated, it will not cause any serious harm. We therefore no longer freak out when it happens. Should someone not get better after a day or two, or even get worse – like when Courtney got Typhoid Fever in Cairo – then we will start to take action, however a night on the toilet or a morning puking here and there are… normal here. Mafiish Mushkela.

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