Nethermore

I decided not to post to the journal until there was good news. And in any case, I was tired of being sick and tired of writing about being sick. So here’s the good news: I actually slept through the night last night. And because of that, I feel ten times better today than I did a few days ago. I’m not completely better. Just a whiff of bad air sends me into a coughing fit.

But the tide of the battle has turned! The forces of Good, led by General Immune System and Field Commanders Medicine and Sleep, are mustering their armies against Emperor Throat Death. The fields of Larynx are strewn with the bodies of fallen heroes, but this one last ride has the bad guys on their knees.

It’s amazing what feeling just a little better does for the outlook of my stay here. Even though I have a load of work left to do (and only two weeks left in which to do it), I’m feeling less pressure and more bright of outlook than in weeks.

I’ve never been afraid of sleep. It was always a welcome relief to be able to slip into oblivion every night.

But now I’m scared of sleeping. Last night I was up until almost 4am because I knew what would come when I tried to sleep.

The coughs are worse at night, when I’m reclining or in bed. And even though I’ve got antibiotics that have helped ease the coughing, each cough is now like a mini wrestling match between me and asphyxiation. Every time leaves me gasping for breath as if I’m breathing through Jell-O, or not even breathing at all.

The ironic thing is that I’m writing a story about a character who is afraid of sleeping. And now I understand him more than I ever wanted to.

I’ve finally got pictures uploaded. I’ll add more as I get more…but for now I’m finally caught up.

Schaumberger Castle
Technology Convention
Great Apartment Tour
Osnabrück Cathedral
Random Stuff and the Netherlands
Bad Bentheim Castle
Hamburg
Frankfurt Temple
Maiwoche

I have very good news. I’ve been trying to keep it to myself all day, but I just can’t help myself. I’ve got to tell somebody, and since nobody around here understands my German, looks like this is the best place to go with it. Well, here goes:

I’m not dead.

Earlier in the week I would have seen that as bad news, in light of how sick I’ve been. I’ve wanted remove my throat and throw it out the window (which would be a bad idea, since that’s probably how got into this mess in the first place). But I haven’t done that, and I won’t.

I’ve just been so sleep-deprived because of the coughing and choking that I’ve been loathing the nights. I just want to shut down and let my body do its job and start healing, but truth is, if you can’t breathe, you can’t sleep.

So, the Branch President called yesterday and asked me to speak in Church. I was up until 2am writing my talk on two 3×5 cards—I knew I shouldn’t get too ambitious. Matthias luckily corrected all my grammar mistakes, but it didn’t make it any easier that I was sick, had to teach the lesson to the Youth, and had to speak as well.

But I made it through. That counts for something, right?

When I was in the Philippines, early on in my mission, I remember the frustration of not being able to speak or understand. After a while I didn’t want anything to do with the language. My thoughts were along the lines of, “Why can’t Tagalog be more like English?” And just as often, because I’d taken German in High School, “Why can’t Tagalog be more like German?”

One night I had a dream where my mission president called me into his office and explained that there had been a mistake. I had been assigned to the Philippines by mistake and that I was really supposed to go to Germany. He handed me my plane ticket and sent me on my way.

If I could travel back in time, I wouldn’t have the heart to visit my 19-year old self and say, “Look, kid. It’d be just as hard in Germany.”

I know that now because I’m going through it again. It was painful enough the first time. It is ironic, however, that my thoughts now are more along the lines of, “Why can’t German be more like Tagalog?”

It’s good to be reminded of these things, to remember how much the Lord helped me on my mission. The language eventually came, the comprehension came as well, and I was able to talk to the Filipinos just as easily as I could speak English.

Maybe even better than I could speak my native language . . . two years of speaking another language did something to me—it royally messed up my English at the time. But that’s another story.

Another day spent inside working on the cinematics for the video game. Come afternoon, I realized I’d better do some laundry and get groceries, so in between transferring files, I tried to figure out the German washer once again (I think I got it right this time—there’s no instructions for these things anywhere on the internet—I may post some later for the benefit of others living here).

On my way to the bus stop to get groceries, I saw up ahead as two kids were riding bikes on the sidewalk. The little boy sped ahead, toward me, and passed by on his tiny bike. The girl followed, much more slowly, and as she gained speed, she called out to her brother, “Akhmed!”

At the very same moment she went crashing to the pavement, landing in a heap of bicycle and child. It was right next to me. I turned, I offered my hand, and she looked up pleadingly.

I didn’t know what to do. So I spoke. In English. Bad idea. “Are you okay? Can I help you?”

Her pleading look turned into one of horror, and she started crying violently. Luckily two other guys—obviously foreigners as well, but evidently not so foreign as I am—rushed over and began speaking German to her. Her crying quieted. They got her up. I picked up the bike, fixed the seat, and since everyone was ignoring me, I walked to the bus stop.

Man, how many people will I wind up scaring before I learn this language?

In other news, I just learned that I’ll be teaching the lesson this Sunday–in German. Heaven help us.

I’ve been fighting against seeing a doctor since my insurance doesn’t work here. But after about a week of near-sleepless nights and the inability to breathe, Matthias finally prevailed upon me to let him call a doctor and at least ask how much it would cost.

The last ten days, I’ve only been making it through on prayers alone. And God’s been good to me, allowing me to get a little bit of coughless sleep. To me it’s miraculous.

But as this thing wasn’t getting any better, I figured I’d better go to the doctor. And since Matthias found a place that would allow me to come in and pay 25 Euro cash, I figured I’d give it a shot. I wouldn’t have gone otherwise, and I might have died, or had my lungs removed.

I’ve got an infected larynx. How in the world? That explains why I can’t breathe and I can barely talk. It’s not like I’ve been dragging my voicebox behind the bus on the string, so I still can’t figure out how I got sick.

Now, the healthcare system is a little different here. I know that, although I’m not going to go into the differences, other than it’s socialized, or something. The decorations were sparse. It wasn’t one of those dressed-up and happy doctor’s offices you find in Utah. The waiting room was packed with people, and we were lucky to get a seat. When we entered the room, Matthias turned to me and said, “Oh great, this looks like an opportunity for you to pick up more diseases.”

After a wait that was much shorter than I expected, thanks to Matthias’ foresight in calling ahead and getting me an appointment, I was ushered into an examination room with another patient.

Great, I thought. Looks like we get joint examinations, too. I was hoping the other patient had something interesting to show the doctor, when the other patient’s friend came in and got her. Guess she had misheard and thought she was next instead of me.

Phew. That just left Matthias and I to observe what would come next: the Alien Abduction.

Matthias explained my symptoms and the doctor ushered me into the patient chair. I looked to my left. All the tools in the stand looked scarily too much like dentist tools, if your dentist also happened to abduct people in his UFO on the weekends. There were wands and probes and things that I could only imagine were saws meant for ripping open my throat to get a better look at the what might be bothering me.

The first thing he did was to get out his third-longest pair of tweezers. Now these were the kind of tweezers that have the finger holes like those found in scissors, then there was the tweezing end, but where a normal pair of tweezers stopped, this pair just kept going, ending in four-inch spikes. The doctor put cotton in this and before I could cry out that he had the wrong person, he shoved the tweezers up my nose.

Then the doctor swore in German and left the room. I don’t understand many words, but that is one word that I’ve heard often enough to figure out what it means.

Ever see that part in Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger pulls the orb out of his nose. Yeah, it was kind of like that. I was just waiting for the doctor to come back and remove the memory orb so that the Martian police could no longer track me.

The doctor came back, grabbed a little gun with a very long barrel in one hand. “Open wide,” he said, taking a tissue in the other hand. “Now stick out your tongue.” I stuck out my tongue, and he caught it as if it were a bug. Then he shoved the gun down my poor, aching throat.

I guess there was a camera on the other end of the gun. But my throat was a little shy and didn’t want to be in the picture.

“Say ‘hee.’” I guess he didn’t have any furry little stuffed animals to make my throat smile. And maybe doctors just make you say ‘hee’ here instead of ‘ah.’

“Ghkee,” I said, though it mostly came out like a gagging noise. I think it took him five minutes to remove the gun from my throat, even though I only think it was in there a little more than five seconds.

Then he repeated the process, and didn’t even offer me a sucker when I left. Though I did get plenty of antibiotics and a prescription for steroids. Not that I need steroids. Coughing is a great work out for the abs. I’m more in shape than I’ve been in months!

Before he left, he put the happy tweezers up my nose again and retrieved the cotton.

“Does it feel better?”

Of course it feels better now that you’ve pulled that crazy piece of cotton out of my nasal cavity. I didn’t say that, though. I said, “Thanks.” And I meant it. This guy was doing me a big favor by giving me a very good price for his services.

So now I’m doped up and still coughing. I’m hoping my larynx gets better so I can actually speak again someday. I would also like a full night of sleeping, if possible.

After the UFO set me back down, I went to CD City and bought a CD of a goth metal band from the Netherlands. They’re called Within Temptation, and their songs are pretty cool. After what I’d been through, I bought a pastry, too. I’ll have to say that I’m enjoying the CD more. It’s kind of hard to play music on a pastry.

Many of you know that I’ve moved to Germany for the summer and am utterly swamped with the animation I’m doing for a game coming up for the Nintendo Wii–Space Station Tycoon. Sorry for the inactivity of the blog, but I do need time to sleep and eat . . . and explore places like Hamburg and Frankfurt and the Netherlands on the weekends.

In Hamburg last weekend I developed a cough that has superpowers. I’ve successfully called three whooping cranes and one barking seal to our apartment. The former came to the balcony and beat against the glass doors. The latter climbed up three flights of stairs and slapped its fins together in the hall for a half hour, much to the annoyance of our Turkish neighbors. After that, the seal disappeared. But the cranes are still there, and they’re larger than pigeons, so needless to say, the mess I’ll have to clean up later is a fairly large one. Curse this stupid cough!

I checked online, and out of a list of 20 things, I think I narrowed it down to these three: 1) bronchitis, 2) exercise-induced asthma, or 3) Tuberculosis. I’m ruling out #3, and think I have a combo of 1 and 2, which means I’ll be better in 2-3 weeks. I don’t know if I can handle the cranes on the balcony for that long. I’ve already run out of fish.

This weekend we’re going to the Frankfurt Temple to do a few sessions. It’ll be nice to get out of the house. I literally sit in the apartment, staring out a window to the world that is Germany, and I animate monkeys and barfing whales. I could be animating how to count to 31, like I did at my last job. I’ll take the barfing whale, thank you very much.

Here’s today’s stupid happening. I’m doing animation stuff when I hear someone beating on the apartment wall next door. It continues and pretty soon somebody rings my door bell. There’s a 6 foot 5 German guy spouting German at me and looking at me like I must be the dumbest person alive. So I tell him I don’t speak German. By the look in his eyes, my response seals the deal. I AM the dumbest person on the planet. So he asks me this question, in English. “You, a hammer?” I’m not that dumb. Of course I’m not a hammer. But the neighbors might be. They’re the ones pounding on the wall. So I pointed to the neighbors and told him to try there.

In other news, I tried to give a lesson (in German!) to a group of youth about gratitude today. I was very grateful that they corrected all my grammar and vocabulary mistakes. Maybe next time they’ll actually understand what I was talking about.