Day down... for the count

One of our faithful readers asked if, with a day off, we would be writing more regularly. I would say emphatically, "yes" but....

I had intended and expected and was excited to go see more of the trail system I'd found last week. Photos of the city from a safe distance, seeing people instead of crowds, more plants than buildings. I was and am excited by the idea and sorry I hadn't made time before. But on Monday I came down with a massive cold or something. I managed to get through my one class on Monday (and be grateful most of my work happened on Saturday when I was a little more coherent) and then fell into a feverish delirium that night, probably 'cause I knew I had the next day off.

I'll skip the details, but it brings up a point about traveling abroad. Yes, it is a complaint but it's part of the adventure or the trials, however you label it. In Taipei I'm quite sure there's a higher instance of respiratory diseases.

I don't know frequency from a local's perspective, but I know I used to get sick maybe once a year in the States. Once every two or three years I'd get something bad enough to be memorable. Here, I've been sick four or five times in a year, regardless of season and several have been tough to forget.

A lot of this is because I don't have an immunity to the local diseases. I'm sure I'd be sick more just by being here. I think I've mentioned before how this's starting to feel like disease-vacation, catching bugs from other parts of the world so you're better equipped for the coming pandemic. If this's true, I feel I'm well equipped now: stop the ride, I'd like to get off... and throw up.

It also doesn't help to work in a school, where every disease to sniffle a nose in I-don't-know-how-many elementary schools, will be run past me. I might even be this sick in the States if I had this job. So between those two major changes in my situation, there are more opportunities to try the local fare, so to speak.

I'm confident that these are respiratory diseases because one: I can taste the air. Two: many people wear masks here, some are to protect others from their disease but many scooter-riders wear them so I think much of the population has suspicions about the air-quality. Three: I've had at least two, maybe three sicknesses where I spent time coughing icky stuff out of my lungs.

One illness actually robbed me of most of my vocal ability for nearly a week. This's particularly notable, for me, because while I've lost my voice for a day or so after screaming for hours at a state basketball tournament or something, I've never lost my voice to a bug.

And it was added irony to the frustration because after ten years or so of editing-writing jobs where speaking wasn't much more than a convenience, I lost my voice on a job when I needed my voice.

Coming face-to-face with some of these realities hasn't really been fun. I mean, it's not the army where you can get, along with job-related injuries, meningitis. But it's been an education to learn just how reliant disease prevention is on my system being familiar with potential diseases. I thought I was doing really well: drinking a fair amount of water and o.j., getting lots of sleep, running occasionally.

But come to find out, running might just be part of the problem. In the States I think running in the winter is what keeps me healthy. I spend less time indoors and I get fresh air and exercise. Here, I'm beginning to suspect that the fine particulates I breathe in might be neutralizing the positive effects or maybe making it worse than not running.

Maybe I should be hiking more. More away from the city and the traffic, and not so much rapid breathing. It would be an interesting physiologic research project, if I had the time and resources.

I hope, next week, to have a real blog with pictures and interesting things to talk about.