German Healthcare

Kids'-Play-areaThis is my second time in Munich. And the second time getting sick.

The stress of travelling, of leaving my dogs behind at home, of working on my relationships with everyone and everything…letting go and relaxing.

Stress can do funny things to your body and mind. We often bolster against change, against energy downloads, against whatever. Holding it together, because frankly who has the time to be sick, right? When we relax, on a vacation, at your best friend’s house, we can get sick. We let go and allow.

On the day after the workshop last year, I got a cold sore. The first in, like, seven years! Or maybe more. I used coconut oil. I took Ferr Phos tissue salt. Lots of Vitamin C + Zinc. I slept. I drank SO much water and tea.

I gave in and went to a pharmacy. When they suggested something chemical, I knew I needed it. Generally, it’s tissue salts and homeopathic remedies they recommend. It’s serious when they hand over something chemical. So I took it. Not happy about it though also not happy to have an ugly and uncomfortable cold sore. My lips were chapped from the October weather.

That cold sore was meant to be there that whole week. The morning of my flight, when I was washing my face, the monster of a thing slid off. Just like that. The whole thing, completely intact. This is not how cold sores go. Not in my experience EVER.

For some reason I needed to allow the cold sore to erupt. Maybe it was deep cleansing. Matrix changes. Who knows. There was a reason. It did its job and it left. If only I had that clarity and determined action with my relationships.

As I sit here writing this post, I am still amazed. One year on.

As I sit here, wearing glasses, resting my eyes from an allergy. Yep, eye issue was this trip’s ailment. The lingering one, anyway – so the big one. I also spent one night vomiting, coming to grips with the newness of how I felt and the unfamiliarity with my own body. Even the cat cuddled with me, to ease my fears and pain.

My best friend and I went to Prague. There were musings of Athens, Delphi, Rome, Milan, Amsterdam…nothing quite worked out. In the end, we circled back to Prague. Prague just made sense. We were invited to Prague. I had been thinking about Prague. I was there almost 10 years ago with my husband. It was something I needed to do. To reset. To create new memories.

On the night before, my friend’s husband convinced us to drive, rather than taking a bus full of guys headed out to Prague for sex (his words). I’m not sure why we booked the bus. I felt bad that she would have to drive, having just driven hours to our workshop. I wasn’t sure I would be able to stay awake again, on this trip. She got a speeding ticket in the last stretch before reaching the retreat. Just when I was waking up from a rare nodding-off. She didn’t see any speed signs. I was out of it and still focusing. She was worried about being late.

Maybe her son’s question of why his mom always drove me around while they lived in Singapore still lingered. (Well, I didn’t drive then and we could continue our great conversations)

Guilt. A very poor motivator. Never turns out well.

So we drove. She drove. And I stayed awake. Long story short. My eye was red and slightly weepy when we got into Prague. It’s like the moment I entered the biosphere of that city, my eye thing popped up. I thought it was sleep gook and let it go, until at lunch, our friends questioned its seriousness. Off to a Czech pharmacy. Armed with eye drops and cream, I began what would turn out to be 3 weeks (and counting) of eye recovery. Later my Czech friend from Singapore pointed out how chemical that stuff was! Eeek. I was clearly not seeing clearly.

Onto German Healthcare

I love going to the pharmacy – tissue salts, natural products…I always return home with a supply. The prices, like those of organic produce, are SO much more reasonable there than in Singapore, where everything is imported. We do have a growing number of farmers using organic principles back home. But Singapore is only a city-state, focused on being technologically advanced, modern, and financial. Farmland is not a government priority. I always wonder about their stand on food security.

The week before, my friend’s son had gotten an eye infection. It wasn’t better with the pharmacy homeopathic drops or the drops from the doctor. Luckily for me, they already had an appointment booked in with the Eye Clinic for him. Instead of one child, it was a family trip – my friend, her husband (for translations), and their child plus a visiting friend. A crowd. Oh yeah, my friend’s eyes also flared up.

Turned out she had what her son had – an eye infection. I got something different. An allergy to the toxins produced by bacteria normally resident in my eyes. My immune system was shot I guess and my normal bacterial balance was out as well.

My take on this whole eye thing?

The eyes are connected to the Liver and according to Chinese Medicine, the Liver is associated with anger. I was angry. I was angry at what was happening. At what he had done. At how he was handling it. I was angry at myself for not being more resolute. I was angry on that Prague trip so many years ago. We were there for one of his MBA course trips. A tour around Eastern Europe, a couple of months after we got married. Blissful? Try stressful. He was stressed. I remember having a good time, a great time, but I also remember being yelled at a lot. Why? No clue.

I was naive. I was in love.

Being a newly wed and seeing he wasn’t dealing, I held in my anger. My anger for being his verbal punching bag. For him breaching my boundaries and being angry and not communicating. I held it in because this was really HIS trip. I was just tagging along. I was playing tourist and he was going to class. I bit my tongue. Maybe it’s been festering all this time. It certainly remained buried. Until this trip to Prague triggered it, ready to be released.

I guess I have been angry all along that what I did help to set poor boundaries and the power balance in our relationship. I let him. I let him then, years ago in Prague, and I let me in the years to follow, as I became a trailing spouse.

Living apart has been a HUGE opportunity for me to let go of a lot. Ideas of what marriage and partnership are. Of self-worth, in the face of deep betrayal. Of moving on and reigniting my own dreams. Living for myself, for the present, rather than the future.

Because I am sure I comforted myself with the thought that he would retire soon, and we would lead a normal life. We would have a nest egg and we would migrate to New Zealand and become teachers. Or we would open a B&B or we would have an animal sanctuary. He spoke of being a forest ranger. Meaningful work. Meaningful life. To the future, I always looked. That was how I bared much of the present, with all his promises and plans.

I do also wonder, as you may be now, why I didn’t leave? The good times far outnumbered the bad. I saw the good in him. He was funny, and fun. I made a commitment and I believed that’s what grownups did. I want now to say I loved him but since 2012, I have been questioning this thing called love.  No marriage is perfect, I was told and I heard repeatedly. And he would apologize profusely after each fight, all his vicious angry verbal attacks.  And I justified for him that the stress in his life, for making our life together secure and happy, was a lot and I had to play my part in all of it.

I was not happy getting blood shot eyes and blurry vision in Prague. Not seeing the beautiful city with my best friend who I only get to see once in a blue moon. It was sunny summer weather, after a cold week back in Munich. It was uncomfortable wearing eyeglasses. I was ill at ease. I don’t like not having peripheral vision. I felt clumsy, and I did trip a few times and walk into doorways, having completely misjudged everything. What else was I not seeing? I did decide to wear my eyeglasses more often.

It was NOT the trip I was looking forward to, which was supposed to have been beaching it up in Greece somewhere. Instead I was stuck with eyes so red and painful that I couldn’t even look at them myself. No late-night bingers and dancing. No shopping because I felt so unattractive and bloated. Plus I really couldn’t really focus.

I had wanted to let loose. It just turned out to be a different letting loose.

Despite what I wanted for the trip, this was what I needed. A pilgrimage to go the next level. Prague will be there. I will return. First it was time to release all that trauma hidden away in my cells, in my memories, muddling the light and clarity.

Of all the places to be sick, I was grateful to be hanging out with my friend. Perhaps it’s because she’s a mom. It’s also because she’s thoughtful and cared. I ate like she did so I always had delicious food that I enjoyed. I had beautiful German bread sandwiches with sardines, avocado, rocket, topped with coconut oil, raw chocolate mousse, homecooked rice porridge in hazelnut milk with raspberries and wild dandelion and daisy, lentil soups…and I slept whenever I wanted. As much as I love and miss my dogs, not having to wake up early to walk them and be on a routine to feed them, at least for a couple of weeks, was a nice little bit of freedom.

The chance to do absolutely nothing was exactly what I needed.

Having no responsibility. Not needing to think about him. Or wondering why he was telling me half-truths. This was replenishing.

Oh, German healthcare. It is efficient.

And according to my friend, her health plan covers all sorts of tests and treatments. Her epiphany came after her younger son’s grommet surgery. Back in Singapore, she would automatically be handed antibiotics. We both feel that antibiotics are a last resort, a must, rather than the first recourse.

With ear infections, though, especially in a place as humid as Singapore, it can get serious, fast. She wasn’t happy about the antibiotics. She saw them as necessary and supported her son’s health with probiotics and as much good nutrition as she could manage to get in. Not always easy with kids, I realize.

Then she found out how it works in Germany. Her doctor didn’t give her any antibiotics right off the bat. When she asked him about that, she was in turn asked why would antibiotics be needed when there was no infection. Yes! Why obliterate a good working system with something so over the top. We need antibiotics when we need them but why do so many doctors hand them out so quickly? Antibiotic resistance is a real thing, from its liberal overuse. The body is built to defend against foreign substances, including viruses and bacteria. We need to allow it to do its job, supporting it with good nutrition, rest, and hydration.

So when I travel, I always carry with me Vitamin C, tissue salts (primarily Ferr Phos), essential oils, and flower essences. I am a bad patient. I know this of myself so I try to minimize the frequency and the duration of being sick.

If I do get sick, I hold various fingers and points (Jin Shin Jyutsu) and explore why I am sick to unearth the real imbalance. I wondered if I got sick in Germany this time so I could extend my trip to be with my friend and her family longer. Or if I was avoiding coming home and facing my reality.

So maybe my eyes needed the cleansing, to open up my sight onto what is afoot and to expand my vision of what’s to come and what’s possible. There are never accidents.

June 19, 2014
August 12, 2014

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