Some More Incoherent Ramblings

Yes, I'm still writing while medicated

The next day began much like the last.  I incoherently mumbled and stumbled around.  

"Kyla, you are going to stay with a different family this weekend," my host sister told me "We have a family problem and we are going to Istanbul to talk about it"

"Mmhhmmm" was my response until she sent me upstairs to get packed.  At a different point this sudden change might have bothered me, but at this point I was pretty good with staying anywhere with a bed.  

My day at school reminded me of a chapter from Harry Potter. It seems like in almost every book, Harry ends up in the hospital wing going in and out of consciousness, while various people visit him, standing awkwardly over him and having conversations that he undersatnds to varying degrees.  

My day at school was much like this.  After, yet again, staggering into the nurses office. I was put back in bed.  By the end of the day, I had recieved more visitors than I could count, and I imagine even more people came to see me while I was legitamitely asleep. Sometimes I was able to sit up and have a conversation with them. Other times, My visitors stood by my bed speaking about me in hushed voices, thinking I was asleep.  Many visits fit somewhere between these two extremes.  Like when the principle took his seven-or-eight year old daughteer to see me.  

"Say hello" He prompted his daughter as I groggily sat up. I attempted a sweet-but-tired-smile and probably ended up looking like a lunatic swamp monster.  The girl hid behind her father's leg.  

I was quite content to lie in bed all day, and I was glad to see how many of my friends cared enough to sacrifice their breaks to see me, so there was no show of emotion until my host mother came to say goodbye for the weekend.

I kept a brave face until she left, but I felt abanodoned and lost.  I had been told earlier that I was going to be spending the weekend in the schools dormitories, which fufilled my main requirment of having a bed, but it wasn't the same as having a family.  I curled up to face the wall and started to cry.  (This probably had more to do with the medication I was on than anything else)

When Vahide came in to say good bye, we had a Turkish style hugging and crying fit, while Berna laughed awkwardly and got us some paper towels.  We almost succeeded in getting the nurse to cry too when Vahide had to leave.  Oh well, we tried.  

Before bed, one of my friends who normally boards at school came in to stay she would come back to school early that weekend so I would have someone to spend Sunday with.  I just hope I'm not asleep all day Sunday too...

I've spent last night and all of today getting to know the school staff a lot better than I ever really wanted to.  If you want to know the details of my diet you could ask the schools chef, who was nice enough to make adjustments to the menu for me, as well as bring me an apple and salad.  I made special friends with one of the cleaning ladies when she tried to show me where the school nurse was only to have me collapse agianst a wall.  I learned she is deceptively strong for someone so small when she practically carried me to the office where the school nurse was waiting.  Speaking of the school nurse, we are now friends on facebook and she has been pretty much amazing.  She has had to do just about everything for me including feeding me and buttoning up my sweater this morning, and I'd rather not bring up the places she's had to stab me with needles. 

Overall, I can't say this has been the best part of my exchange, but on the upside I'm really too groggy to really feel strongly about anything so I'm pretty content to spend this weekend in the nurses office.  The doctor says I can expect to stay tired and sleepy until about next Wednesday, and I might be switiching families after the weekend.  It's been rough, but it's nice to know the lengths total strangers will go to just to help a sick foreign exchange student.