wiped out in la suisse
I know i need to write something to try to capture my thoughts and feelings over the past week, but i am utterly wiped out.
Last week i got on the plane to Geneva, via Istanbul. I met a few of my colleagues in the airport, but it was that weird kind of meeting where all of them knew who i was because i am a new starter, and tall, and white... but i didn't know who any of them were, because i've only been on the job for two weeks, and only one of those weeks i attended regular meetings (first week was onboarding) and anyway the Taipei office is still only kinda 60% there due to people working from home to avoid COVID. So they're all like hi, how are you, bla bla, small talk, small talk, and i'm just smiling and nodding and feeling awkward.
The flight had a weird beginning. Right on the day that China started to shoot missiles over Taiwan, i received a notification from the airline that the flight times would change. And even though technically China is done with their aggressive dick-waggling, at least one airline has permanently changed their flight path to avoid the Taiwan Strait. We flew south toward Philippines, then west toward Hong Kong, and only then headed northwest over China and Central Asia to pop out in Europe. This is exactly the sort of thing the Chinese government hoped to achieve with their latest attack on the free world - changing the status quo of a freely navigable Taiwan Strait. Now it's a No Fly Zone even for civilian planes, and perhaps also a No Sailing Zone, at least for foreign military vessels that previously could legally transit through what should be international waters.
Somewhere over Guangdong i fell asleep. Istanbul was a shit place to transfer. It's got the same setup as Heathrow where they don't tell you what gate you're leaving from until a half hour before boarding, so you just float around aimlessly in the central area where there is never enough seating.
All of this was made worse by this infernal itching that has just gotten worse and worse since i ran out of the oral steroids the hospital gave me on discharge.
Honestly, i haven't been able to fully enjoy anything for well over a month due to this condition, whatever it is. Every night i am itching. Every day i am burning. My body is constantly exhausted because i can't get a proper night's sleep and my immune system is working overtime.
Everyone seemed to be of the opinion that the rash would improve once i got to Europe, where it's much cooler and less humid. They were all fucking wrong. Today it is worse than it has ever been. I am in incredible fucking pain and my body looks like it got blasted with a flamethrower. But i'll get to that in a bit.
Landing in Geneva was fine. I tagged together with my colleagues to take public transport to the hotel, then after showering and changing i went out for a walk by myself to try clear my head.
I was expecting Switzerland to be more German. Like, i knew they spoke French here too, but i figured it was sort of a bilingual setup where everyone can speak both. That is absolutely not the case. Fucking nobody in Geneva can speak German. Everything is French. The food is French. The fashion is French. The obnoxious waft of perfume every time someone walks past is as French as a cigarette-smoking baguette wearing a beret. This place is really French. And my French is for fucking merde.
It's a little bit embarassing that French was the first language i ever studied in school - for several years at that - and it's an official language of Canada - where i am now a citizen - and i still can't fucking understand or speak it worth a damn. It's been a long time since i have been anywhere i felt so utterly linguistically lost. Even in Italy and Greece i got the impression people took pity on my lack of linguistic ability, but French are a whole nother breed of arrogant. I mean, i'm sure they're all nice people. Like. No, they are definitely nice people underneath. But it's just such a French-ass thing to on the surface roll your eyes and act desperately inconvenienced the moment someone reveals they can't speak your shitty fucking language.
Fuck, man.
But, i did manage to get a falafel for lunch, and later on some hummus for dinner. And a beer to sip in a triangle park/courtyard thing near the hotel. Something which i think is 100% Swiss - not French Swiss - is that everything is ridiculously expensive. That falafel from a cheap corner store was 11CHF, same kinda thing you could get at a döner place in Germany or Austria for 3€, or maybe 4€ if inflation hit over there same as it did everywhere else in the world. A small beer was 4CHF at the Lebanese joint, or 2CHF take-out from a tabac... but in the French/Swiss/European cafés and bistros you're looking at 8CHF for a beer - and main meals are 20CHF plus. It's incomprehensibly expensive. Completely unaffordable for anyone who doesn't work here and get paid in local wages, which i presume are at least twice as high as the rest of Europe to make up for it.
I went into work on Tuesday morning, but not before enjoying my European hotel breakfast. I had kinda forgotten what Europeans have for breakfast because it's been a while since i was here, but - holy moly - bread! FUCKING BREAD! The bread is like manna from heaven. American and Canadian bread is complete and utter trash, and i will not accept any sourdough-baking, hipster-ass, craft-beer drinking take that you can find good bread there if you search hard enough because you can't. And the less said about Asian bread the better. But European bread, it's freshly baked each morning, it comes in a complete loaf, you slice it yourself, the crust is crispy, the dough is bouncy, it's not sweet or soft, it's full of seeds and nuts and things that make it feel like a complete meal in itself... Glorious. I missed it so much. And although this is very much the Frenchiest corner of Switzerland, thank God they still have German-style bread. Sadly no olive oil to drizzle - the discerning vegan's alternative to butter - but margarine was acceptable. Strong, black espresso coffee that i would've enjoyed even more if i hadn't just come from Taiwan where it is also fairly easy to find good coffee. And fruit. Fruit salad and raw nuts, without any sugars or flavorings.
Of course there was also a full spread of cheeses and salamis and hams, some baked beans and sausages for the British tourists, a pancake maker for the American tourists, and various mueslis and yogurts for the more health-conscious Europeans. But the highlight. Bread. Bread, bread, glorious bread.
Work was work. I would probably be more excited for this company trip if i had been at the company longer, so i could put names to faces that i'd already worked with online... But since everyone everywhere is new to me, it's just, eh, whatever. The office is way out in an industrial park on the edge of town, literally a stone's throw from the French border. There is nothing out there, so they take lunch orders each morning and get food delivered from nice restaurants downtown. The best part, and something that felt so delightfully European i had to laugh, was the office manager coming round the office ringing a hand bell to announce that lunch had arrived.
The funny thing about European cities is how small they actually are. Even going out to the "outer suburbs" of Geneva, you can just walk there. Yeah, it'll take an hour or maybe a bit more from the lake, but it's totally viable to do. Our hotel is about 40 minutes walk from the office, and it's a pleasant walk. Because, this is the thing. It's fucking Europe, and the towns are designed for pedestrians. God, how i missed this. Towns where the most direct line between point A and point B is a pedestrian-only walkway, maybe with a bike lane, and trees all along. Cars are made to take long, roundabout detours, because FUCK CARS. The roads are very narrow and some of them have tram lines on there too. From top to bottom it's clear that the city has been designed for people, not for vehicles. There are low and mid rise apartment blocks with pedestrian paths in between. Loads of little triangles and squares and gardens and plazas and courtyards - all of which are open to the public. There is no gated community nonsense, or private sports fields, or school grounds with security guards out front stopping non-students from walking through as a short cut. People just walk wherever, and they trust each other to respect each other. And the cars are all somewhere else, on a highway that goes in a tunnel under the city, so the noise is kept far away, or parked, or never bought at all because why would you need to drive when public transport is faster, and you can walk to the bakery, and the café, and your work, and the tabac?
I miss cities designed like this. Asian cities are at least better than American cities in that they prioritize public transport over private vehicles, but they're still hopeless compared to European cities when it comes to prioritizing pedestrians and human-sized transport like bicycles.
Of course Switzerland has a reputation for being very well-organized and impeccably planned, but this people-first design is something that a lot of European cities share.
And i do feel like i'm back in Europe, despite struggling with the language. Yes, it is incredibly annoying that the supermarkets close at 7pm, barely giving enough time to swing by after work. Don't even get me started on everything being closed on Sundays, because last time i experienced this in Vienna i raged through the city yelling and screaming because i was so pissed off. But all this... buildings being just the right height, the sound of trams creaking their way through town, trees everywhere, breathable air, people lounging around in parks, people generally respecting one another... it's where i grew up. My childhood was in Europe. My teenage years were in Europe. No matter where i go in the world or what citizenship i hold on paper, i think i will always be a European. I understand the culture because it's my culture. When i look at a building, i think to myself "that looks like where oma used to live". When i separate my trash into cans or glass or whatever, it's just automatic, it feels like the natural way to do things. Sitting down with a brötchen and a beer and some dates, watching the sun go down between the buildings, hearing some techno music in the distance, and people chattering about art or theater, oldies sharing a slice of cake, visiting local cafés that aren't franchises or chains... it's like i'm just continuing my life where i left it off. Every time i leave Europe, and come back again, it's just life the way i kinda expect it to be. It's not home for me - not any more thanks to Brexit - but it is... my culture, my heritage.
I often wonder what my life would've been like if mom had never moved us to Australia after i finished highschool in Holland. I always had a fantasy of moving to America, but more realistically i would've gone to technical school, or perhaps taken another two years of high school, moving up to the higher stream that would get me entrance to university. Maybe i would've moved to Helsinki to write Linux or code demos. Maybe i would've moved here - to Geneva - to work at CERN. Maybe i would've gone to Germany and been an active part of the earlier wave of artists and squatters populating East Berlin in the 1990s. Somehow i think i would never have changed my sex. I think the more "metrosexual" vibe of European masculinity might have let me drift on as a young man without feeling the need to escape my own body and the social prison it created for me in Australia. Or maybe not, but transitioning in Europe would definitely have been a different experience to down under. I'd still love techno music, that much is for sure, but maybe i would've continued writing it, with the better work/life balance people enjoy here. Who knows?
I do know that these are the sorts of things being back here puts into my mind. And of course it would, because where else would i get those thoughts? Would i ponder my life if i had remained in Australia or New Zealands? Hell no, because it was never in doubt that i would one day leave those places. Would i ponder my life if i had built a career in the US or Canada - where i dreamed of living as a kid? Well, i don't need to ponder that, because i did it. I lived in the US for a year, and Canada for several. Don't need to imagine it - it happened, and it wasn't nearly as good as i hoped it would be. It's a very practical decision to hold Canadian citizenship, and it'll be a nice enough place to retire if that's where i end up, but it's not really a "what if". Europe, that's my "what if", because that's the place i left behind.
Anyway, so aside from working hard and pondering my Europeanness and enjoying as much bread as i can get my grubby little hands on... OH MY GOD I AM IN SUCH PAIN.
My skin condition now seems to have split into two independent problems that are both awful. What started in Colombia as some kind of occasional stinging on my neck due to sunburn/heat stroke/overexposure has now grown to a massive, painful rash that reaches from my ears, down my neck, and onto my chest. It's incredibly gross, the skin is all bubbly and bright red. It's hot to the touch and looks like i have been burned. Meanwhile the red dots and itching that started on my legs a couple months ago in Canada spread all the way up and down my legs, into my ass crack and other private areas, around my waist, up and down my back, and now into my armpits. The steroids calmed that down for a while, but when it came back instead of being lots of closely-spaced pimple-like dots, now it is mountainous lumps, like ultimate bee stings of doom. And everything itches, it feels like my skin is coming out from inside me. I start to doze off, then wake up and realize that i have been manically scratching every part of my body in my sleep. It takes every ounce of willpower not to scratch.
And i've tried everything over the counter i could get. I've tried my usual moisturizer - the same Johnson & Johnson Vaseline Aloe Vera cream that i've been using for years without incident. I've tried hypoallergenic moisturizer. I've tried the antihistamine cream the doctor gave me in hospital - in fact i bought two big tubes of it ahead of this trip, and went through the entire first tube in just a day or two. I tried no moisturizer or cream whatsoever. I tried washing with soap. I tried washing with shampoo. I tried washing with body wash. I tried washing twice a day. I tried cold water, hot water. Shit, i threw away the underwear i bought in Colombia that was a poly blend and picked up some (way too-large) cotton panties. I tried wearing no clothes for several days when i was in quarantine. I tried covering up all day at work. Nothing makes it better. It's just getting worse and worse.
I'm searching online, desperately trying to figure out what i might have. It's been going on too long for it to be any kind of virus or probably even a bacterial infection. I can't figure it's an allergy, because i've changed all the stuff and it's only gotten worse. Also, topical antihistamines do nothing. But all that's left is chronic immune system disorders, most of which people get when they are young. And i never had anything like this before. Like, there's stuff like lupus, or psoriasis. I find myself wishing i do have scabies just because at least then i could take some medication and fix it. Because if i have to live with this itching and pain for the rest of my life, it is going to suck. So fucking much. I don't want my sabbatical just gone to be my last hurrah.
I said to my boss in my 1on1 the other day that she's only getting 75% amw, not 100% amw, and it's because of this skin condition. I am distracted during the day by the itching and burning. I'm not sleeping properly at night because it's even worse. I can't enjoy being outside in the sun because that hurts now. I can't enjoy being inside in my bed either because having the sheets up against me chafes. I should be having a blast visiting a new country i never visited before, getting the chance to once again utterly fail to learn French. Hell, it's Friday night, i should be going out to a local nightclub and dancing to some proper techno music. But i can't, because i am exhausted. It's taking all of my spoons just to do the basic shit of going to work. This fucking sucks! I want to cry, but i don't have the energy.
This morning i went to a local pharmacy and saw if they had any better over the counter stuff than the one i visited in Taipei. They did. I got some steroid cream, although not oral steroids because those need a prescription. I'm not sure it will help, but right now anything is better than nothing. I still had some antihistamine tablets i had been rationing from Taiwan to help me sleep in longer than 30 minute bursts, but now i have some local Swiss ones too. I might just suck it up and take those pills every night for the next two weeks just to help me sleep. Once i am back in Taiwan and through my quarantine, i can go back to a dermatologist there with national health coverage, and hopefully they can figure out what the fuck to do. So it's just making it through the next few weeks without dying, that's all i gotta do.
Sunday a bunch of colleagues and i will be going to Chamonix, which is a place i never heard of in my life, but apparently it's really famous. It's in France. There is a mountain there. Which, assuming i am not dead, i will climb. Fuck being sick. Fuck this skin condition. I'm in Switzerland, so obviously i need to cross the border and climb a mountain right next door to Switzerland. Right? Europe is weird, but it's alright.
Happy Friday, all.
Last week i got on the plane to Geneva, via Istanbul. I met a few of my colleagues in the airport, but it was that weird kind of meeting where all of them knew who i was because i am a new starter, and tall, and white... but i didn't know who any of them were, because i've only been on the job for two weeks, and only one of those weeks i attended regular meetings (first week was onboarding) and anyway the Taipei office is still only kinda 60% there due to people working from home to avoid COVID. So they're all like hi, how are you, bla bla, small talk, small talk, and i'm just smiling and nodding and feeling awkward.
The flight had a weird beginning. Right on the day that China started to shoot missiles over Taiwan, i received a notification from the airline that the flight times would change. And even though technically China is done with their aggressive dick-waggling, at least one airline has permanently changed their flight path to avoid the Taiwan Strait. We flew south toward Philippines, then west toward Hong Kong, and only then headed northwest over China and Central Asia to pop out in Europe. This is exactly the sort of thing the Chinese government hoped to achieve with their latest attack on the free world - changing the status quo of a freely navigable Taiwan Strait. Now it's a No Fly Zone even for civilian planes, and perhaps also a No Sailing Zone, at least for foreign military vessels that previously could legally transit through what should be international waters.
Somewhere over Guangdong i fell asleep. Istanbul was a shit place to transfer. It's got the same setup as Heathrow where they don't tell you what gate you're leaving from until a half hour before boarding, so you just float around aimlessly in the central area where there is never enough seating.
All of this was made worse by this infernal itching that has just gotten worse and worse since i ran out of the oral steroids the hospital gave me on discharge.
Honestly, i haven't been able to fully enjoy anything for well over a month due to this condition, whatever it is. Every night i am itching. Every day i am burning. My body is constantly exhausted because i can't get a proper night's sleep and my immune system is working overtime.
Everyone seemed to be of the opinion that the rash would improve once i got to Europe, where it's much cooler and less humid. They were all fucking wrong. Today it is worse than it has ever been. I am in incredible fucking pain and my body looks like it got blasted with a flamethrower. But i'll get to that in a bit.
Landing in Geneva was fine. I tagged together with my colleagues to take public transport to the hotel, then after showering and changing i went out for a walk by myself to try clear my head.
I was expecting Switzerland to be more German. Like, i knew they spoke French here too, but i figured it was sort of a bilingual setup where everyone can speak both. That is absolutely not the case. Fucking nobody in Geneva can speak German. Everything is French. The food is French. The fashion is French. The obnoxious waft of perfume every time someone walks past is as French as a cigarette-smoking baguette wearing a beret. This place is really French. And my French is for fucking merde.
It's a little bit embarassing that French was the first language i ever studied in school - for several years at that - and it's an official language of Canada - where i am now a citizen - and i still can't fucking understand or speak it worth a damn. It's been a long time since i have been anywhere i felt so utterly linguistically lost. Even in Italy and Greece i got the impression people took pity on my lack of linguistic ability, but French are a whole nother breed of arrogant. I mean, i'm sure they're all nice people. Like. No, they are definitely nice people underneath. But it's just such a French-ass thing to on the surface roll your eyes and act desperately inconvenienced the moment someone reveals they can't speak your shitty fucking language.
Fuck, man.
But, i did manage to get a falafel for lunch, and later on some hummus for dinner. And a beer to sip in a triangle park/courtyard thing near the hotel. Something which i think is 100% Swiss - not French Swiss - is that everything is ridiculously expensive. That falafel from a cheap corner store was 11CHF, same kinda thing you could get at a döner place in Germany or Austria for 3€, or maybe 4€ if inflation hit over there same as it did everywhere else in the world. A small beer was 4CHF at the Lebanese joint, or 2CHF take-out from a tabac... but in the French/Swiss/European cafés and bistros you're looking at 8CHF for a beer - and main meals are 20CHF plus. It's incomprehensibly expensive. Completely unaffordable for anyone who doesn't work here and get paid in local wages, which i presume are at least twice as high as the rest of Europe to make up for it.
I went into work on Tuesday morning, but not before enjoying my European hotel breakfast. I had kinda forgotten what Europeans have for breakfast because it's been a while since i was here, but - holy moly - bread! FUCKING BREAD! The bread is like manna from heaven. American and Canadian bread is complete and utter trash, and i will not accept any sourdough-baking, hipster-ass, craft-beer drinking take that you can find good bread there if you search hard enough because you can't. And the less said about Asian bread the better. But European bread, it's freshly baked each morning, it comes in a complete loaf, you slice it yourself, the crust is crispy, the dough is bouncy, it's not sweet or soft, it's full of seeds and nuts and things that make it feel like a complete meal in itself... Glorious. I missed it so much. And although this is very much the Frenchiest corner of Switzerland, thank God they still have German-style bread. Sadly no olive oil to drizzle - the discerning vegan's alternative to butter - but margarine was acceptable. Strong, black espresso coffee that i would've enjoyed even more if i hadn't just come from Taiwan where it is also fairly easy to find good coffee. And fruit. Fruit salad and raw nuts, without any sugars or flavorings.
Of course there was also a full spread of cheeses and salamis and hams, some baked beans and sausages for the British tourists, a pancake maker for the American tourists, and various mueslis and yogurts for the more health-conscious Europeans. But the highlight. Bread. Bread, bread, glorious bread.
Work was work. I would probably be more excited for this company trip if i had been at the company longer, so i could put names to faces that i'd already worked with online... But since everyone everywhere is new to me, it's just, eh, whatever. The office is way out in an industrial park on the edge of town, literally a stone's throw from the French border. There is nothing out there, so they take lunch orders each morning and get food delivered from nice restaurants downtown. The best part, and something that felt so delightfully European i had to laugh, was the office manager coming round the office ringing a hand bell to announce that lunch had arrived.
The funny thing about European cities is how small they actually are. Even going out to the "outer suburbs" of Geneva, you can just walk there. Yeah, it'll take an hour or maybe a bit more from the lake, but it's totally viable to do. Our hotel is about 40 minutes walk from the office, and it's a pleasant walk. Because, this is the thing. It's fucking Europe, and the towns are designed for pedestrians. God, how i missed this. Towns where the most direct line between point A and point B is a pedestrian-only walkway, maybe with a bike lane, and trees all along. Cars are made to take long, roundabout detours, because FUCK CARS. The roads are very narrow and some of them have tram lines on there too. From top to bottom it's clear that the city has been designed for people, not for vehicles. There are low and mid rise apartment blocks with pedestrian paths in between. Loads of little triangles and squares and gardens and plazas and courtyards - all of which are open to the public. There is no gated community nonsense, or private sports fields, or school grounds with security guards out front stopping non-students from walking through as a short cut. People just walk wherever, and they trust each other to respect each other. And the cars are all somewhere else, on a highway that goes in a tunnel under the city, so the noise is kept far away, or parked, or never bought at all because why would you need to drive when public transport is faster, and you can walk to the bakery, and the café, and your work, and the tabac?
I miss cities designed like this. Asian cities are at least better than American cities in that they prioritize public transport over private vehicles, but they're still hopeless compared to European cities when it comes to prioritizing pedestrians and human-sized transport like bicycles.
Of course Switzerland has a reputation for being very well-organized and impeccably planned, but this people-first design is something that a lot of European cities share.
And i do feel like i'm back in Europe, despite struggling with the language. Yes, it is incredibly annoying that the supermarkets close at 7pm, barely giving enough time to swing by after work. Don't even get me started on everything being closed on Sundays, because last time i experienced this in Vienna i raged through the city yelling and screaming because i was so pissed off. But all this... buildings being just the right height, the sound of trams creaking their way through town, trees everywhere, breathable air, people lounging around in parks, people generally respecting one another... it's where i grew up. My childhood was in Europe. My teenage years were in Europe. No matter where i go in the world or what citizenship i hold on paper, i think i will always be a European. I understand the culture because it's my culture. When i look at a building, i think to myself "that looks like where oma used to live". When i separate my trash into cans or glass or whatever, it's just automatic, it feels like the natural way to do things. Sitting down with a brötchen and a beer and some dates, watching the sun go down between the buildings, hearing some techno music in the distance, and people chattering about art or theater, oldies sharing a slice of cake, visiting local cafés that aren't franchises or chains... it's like i'm just continuing my life where i left it off. Every time i leave Europe, and come back again, it's just life the way i kinda expect it to be. It's not home for me - not any more thanks to Brexit - but it is... my culture, my heritage.
I often wonder what my life would've been like if mom had never moved us to Australia after i finished highschool in Holland. I always had a fantasy of moving to America, but more realistically i would've gone to technical school, or perhaps taken another two years of high school, moving up to the higher stream that would get me entrance to university. Maybe i would've moved to Helsinki to write Linux or code demos. Maybe i would've moved here - to Geneva - to work at CERN. Maybe i would've gone to Germany and been an active part of the earlier wave of artists and squatters populating East Berlin in the 1990s. Somehow i think i would never have changed my sex. I think the more "metrosexual" vibe of European masculinity might have let me drift on as a young man without feeling the need to escape my own body and the social prison it created for me in Australia. Or maybe not, but transitioning in Europe would definitely have been a different experience to down under. I'd still love techno music, that much is for sure, but maybe i would've continued writing it, with the better work/life balance people enjoy here. Who knows?
I do know that these are the sorts of things being back here puts into my mind. And of course it would, because where else would i get those thoughts? Would i ponder my life if i had remained in Australia or New Zealands? Hell no, because it was never in doubt that i would one day leave those places. Would i ponder my life if i had built a career in the US or Canada - where i dreamed of living as a kid? Well, i don't need to ponder that, because i did it. I lived in the US for a year, and Canada for several. Don't need to imagine it - it happened, and it wasn't nearly as good as i hoped it would be. It's a very practical decision to hold Canadian citizenship, and it'll be a nice enough place to retire if that's where i end up, but it's not really a "what if". Europe, that's my "what if", because that's the place i left behind.
Anyway, so aside from working hard and pondering my Europeanness and enjoying as much bread as i can get my grubby little hands on... OH MY GOD I AM IN SUCH PAIN.
My skin condition now seems to have split into two independent problems that are both awful. What started in Colombia as some kind of occasional stinging on my neck due to sunburn/heat stroke/overexposure has now grown to a massive, painful rash that reaches from my ears, down my neck, and onto my chest. It's incredibly gross, the skin is all bubbly and bright red. It's hot to the touch and looks like i have been burned. Meanwhile the red dots and itching that started on my legs a couple months ago in Canada spread all the way up and down my legs, into my ass crack and other private areas, around my waist, up and down my back, and now into my armpits. The steroids calmed that down for a while, but when it came back instead of being lots of closely-spaced pimple-like dots, now it is mountainous lumps, like ultimate bee stings of doom. And everything itches, it feels like my skin is coming out from inside me. I start to doze off, then wake up and realize that i have been manically scratching every part of my body in my sleep. It takes every ounce of willpower not to scratch.
And i've tried everything over the counter i could get. I've tried my usual moisturizer - the same Johnson & Johnson Vaseline Aloe Vera cream that i've been using for years without incident. I've tried hypoallergenic moisturizer. I've tried the antihistamine cream the doctor gave me in hospital - in fact i bought two big tubes of it ahead of this trip, and went through the entire first tube in just a day or two. I tried no moisturizer or cream whatsoever. I tried washing with soap. I tried washing with shampoo. I tried washing with body wash. I tried washing twice a day. I tried cold water, hot water. Shit, i threw away the underwear i bought in Colombia that was a poly blend and picked up some (way too-large) cotton panties. I tried wearing no clothes for several days when i was in quarantine. I tried covering up all day at work. Nothing makes it better. It's just getting worse and worse.
I'm searching online, desperately trying to figure out what i might have. It's been going on too long for it to be any kind of virus or probably even a bacterial infection. I can't figure it's an allergy, because i've changed all the stuff and it's only gotten worse. Also, topical antihistamines do nothing. But all that's left is chronic immune system disorders, most of which people get when they are young. And i never had anything like this before. Like, there's stuff like lupus, or psoriasis. I find myself wishing i do have scabies just because at least then i could take some medication and fix it. Because if i have to live with this itching and pain for the rest of my life, it is going to suck. So fucking much. I don't want my sabbatical just gone to be my last hurrah.
I said to my boss in my 1on1 the other day that she's only getting 75% amw, not 100% amw, and it's because of this skin condition. I am distracted during the day by the itching and burning. I'm not sleeping properly at night because it's even worse. I can't enjoy being outside in the sun because that hurts now. I can't enjoy being inside in my bed either because having the sheets up against me chafes. I should be having a blast visiting a new country i never visited before, getting the chance to once again utterly fail to learn French. Hell, it's Friday night, i should be going out to a local nightclub and dancing to some proper techno music. But i can't, because i am exhausted. It's taking all of my spoons just to do the basic shit of going to work. This fucking sucks! I want to cry, but i don't have the energy.
This morning i went to a local pharmacy and saw if they had any better over the counter stuff than the one i visited in Taipei. They did. I got some steroid cream, although not oral steroids because those need a prescription. I'm not sure it will help, but right now anything is better than nothing. I still had some antihistamine tablets i had been rationing from Taiwan to help me sleep in longer than 30 minute bursts, but now i have some local Swiss ones too. I might just suck it up and take those pills every night for the next two weeks just to help me sleep. Once i am back in Taiwan and through my quarantine, i can go back to a dermatologist there with national health coverage, and hopefully they can figure out what the fuck to do. So it's just making it through the next few weeks without dying, that's all i gotta do.
Sunday a bunch of colleagues and i will be going to Chamonix, which is a place i never heard of in my life, but apparently it's really famous. It's in France. There is a mountain there. Which, assuming i am not dead, i will climb. Fuck being sick. Fuck this skin condition. I'm in Switzerland, so obviously i need to cross the border and climb a mountain right next door to Switzerland. Right? Europe is weird, but it's alright.
Happy Friday, all.