The Hardest Week of My Exchange So Far
I considered naming this post "The Worst Week of My Exchange So Far" but didn't really want to make this any more dramatic than it's already going to come across. Signing up for a year abroad comes with a lot of unknowns, and I was lucky enough to have almost all those variables turn into great parts of my exchange. I'm not living with a nightmare host family, going to a school full of kids that hate me, or sitting alone at lunch each day. On the contrary, I have a wonderful host family, go to a school with lots of kids who are interested in learning more about me and the US, and have some amazing friends. That being said, I did have one of the big unknowns, in fact, the one I was most nervous about for some reason, become a bit of an issue this year. Sickness. I do try to include both the ups and downs of this experience on the blog, but I also need to be careful about how I phrase things; I don't need people worrying about me more than necessary. For that reason, I've thought a lot about how much I was going to write about this, and have landed on keeping the specific details within my family but covering more how I'm going about dealing with being sick away from home and managing the various things that come with it.
Let me start by saying that I am by no means seriously ill, and that this could be so much worse. What's made this so hard is trying to figure out the Norwegian health system and how to get what I need without my biological family, along with the discomfort to add to the fun. I've always had a bit of a problematic stomach, but I've had all the issues under control for years now. When I was planning and packing for the year, I took into account the stressors this year could bring and was prepared to deal with the stomach issue I though was most likely to relapse. While I've been sick a lot more frequently here than I was at home, I've been good about taking medicine when I needed it and getting enough rest to get better quickly. Everything was fine until early December, when I began getting some stomach aches. Even then, they weren't bad enough to really affect anything. During Christmas they were stronger and lasted longer, but I blamed all the food and activity mixing with the harder mental state of not being with family for the holidays. When Christmas was over and my stomach still hurt, I began to worry a little more. While eating healthier helped a little, I was still uncomfortable and beginning to stress about this not being about food or foreign germs.
Early this week, the stomach aches hit their worst; bad enough to keep me home the first two days back at school. Over the course of these days, I had some of the worst mental breakdowns and panic attacks I can remember. One thing about me that I've come to realize over these past few months is that I get stressed really easily, often times way out of proportion. The good thing, though, is that this doesn't often show itself because I'm good at keeping myself out of situations that are stress-inducing. While this has been great with regards to managing my time and schoolwork, it also means that I don't really know how to handle the stress when something does creep up on me. This week I was faced with trying to talk to doctors about medical things in a language I'm not 100% fluent in, trying to figure out insurance policies and school absence policies, and having a bigger role in deciding how I wanted to treat whatever this stomach issue is than I have had in the past. This sudden load of more adult-like responsibilities that I'm not sure I would have been able to handle well even if I was totally healthy pushed me over the edge in some ways, and my brain freaked out. Lucky for me (not), my body reacts to stress with stomach aches. Reeaallllyyyy helpful.
For me, the hardest part about all of this has been feeling so alone throughout the process. Even with people here and at home doing everything they could to help, I couldn't shake the feeling that, when it came down to it, I had to make the decisions (something I'm terrible at) and take the initiative myself to handle this. The biggest help for me was being able to talk to my mom back home quite a bit during the week to get advice on what to do. She's the one that has been through this whole stomach thing with me before, and seeing as that turned out well, I trust her opinion on ways to go about getting this fixed. For some exchange students, talking more back home may just add another layer of stress, but for me it helped me organize my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do. While I'm still not feeling 100%, having decided on a path took a lot of the stress off of me and has helped significantly in me feeling well enough to go back to school and take part in some (still not all, but hopefully soon) activities with my host family.
I don't have any pictures from this week since I've spent a good chunk of it in bed or on the couch, but hopefully by next week some of this will be taken care of and I can get back to enjoying this year. Again, I want to stress that I don't want people worrying about me; this really isn't anything serious and it could be way, way worse. I just wanted to let everyone know why there wasn't much excitement this week, and show one of the not-so-fun sides to being an exchange student. If you're someone considering going abroad, don't let this change your mind or scare you! I think it would have been nice to read about how another student dealt with being sick abroad so I might have been more prepared to handle this. I hope you can use this as some mental preparation so if you do get sick (I'd say go into your year expecting a few colds or little stomach bugs, there's a whole different world of bacteria out there!), it doesn't take away from your year as a whole:)
Word of the Post:
en lege = a doctor
Let me start by saying that I am by no means seriously ill, and that this could be so much worse. What's made this so hard is trying to figure out the Norwegian health system and how to get what I need without my biological family, along with the discomfort to add to the fun. I've always had a bit of a problematic stomach, but I've had all the issues under control for years now. When I was planning and packing for the year, I took into account the stressors this year could bring and was prepared to deal with the stomach issue I though was most likely to relapse. While I've been sick a lot more frequently here than I was at home, I've been good about taking medicine when I needed it and getting enough rest to get better quickly. Everything was fine until early December, when I began getting some stomach aches. Even then, they weren't bad enough to really affect anything. During Christmas they were stronger and lasted longer, but I blamed all the food and activity mixing with the harder mental state of not being with family for the holidays. When Christmas was over and my stomach still hurt, I began to worry a little more. While eating healthier helped a little, I was still uncomfortable and beginning to stress about this not being about food or foreign germs.
Early this week, the stomach aches hit their worst; bad enough to keep me home the first two days back at school. Over the course of these days, I had some of the worst mental breakdowns and panic attacks I can remember. One thing about me that I've come to realize over these past few months is that I get stressed really easily, often times way out of proportion. The good thing, though, is that this doesn't often show itself because I'm good at keeping myself out of situations that are stress-inducing. While this has been great with regards to managing my time and schoolwork, it also means that I don't really know how to handle the stress when something does creep up on me. This week I was faced with trying to talk to doctors about medical things in a language I'm not 100% fluent in, trying to figure out insurance policies and school absence policies, and having a bigger role in deciding how I wanted to treat whatever this stomach issue is than I have had in the past. This sudden load of more adult-like responsibilities that I'm not sure I would have been able to handle well even if I was totally healthy pushed me over the edge in some ways, and my brain freaked out. Lucky for me (not), my body reacts to stress with stomach aches. Reeaallllyyyy helpful.
For me, the hardest part about all of this has been feeling so alone throughout the process. Even with people here and at home doing everything they could to help, I couldn't shake the feeling that, when it came down to it, I had to make the decisions (something I'm terrible at) and take the initiative myself to handle this. The biggest help for me was being able to talk to my mom back home quite a bit during the week to get advice on what to do. She's the one that has been through this whole stomach thing with me before, and seeing as that turned out well, I trust her opinion on ways to go about getting this fixed. For some exchange students, talking more back home may just add another layer of stress, but for me it helped me organize my thoughts and figure out what I was going to do. While I'm still not feeling 100%, having decided on a path took a lot of the stress off of me and has helped significantly in me feeling well enough to go back to school and take part in some (still not all, but hopefully soon) activities with my host family.
I don't have any pictures from this week since I've spent a good chunk of it in bed or on the couch, but hopefully by next week some of this will be taken care of and I can get back to enjoying this year. Again, I want to stress that I don't want people worrying about me; this really isn't anything serious and it could be way, way worse. I just wanted to let everyone know why there wasn't much excitement this week, and show one of the not-so-fun sides to being an exchange student. If you're someone considering going abroad, don't let this change your mind or scare you! I think it would have been nice to read about how another student dealt with being sick abroad so I might have been more prepared to handle this. I hope you can use this as some mental preparation so if you do get sick (I'd say go into your year expecting a few colds or little stomach bugs, there's a whole different world of bacteria out there!), it doesn't take away from your year as a whole:)
Word of the Post:
en lege = a doctor
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