chronic sickness management

I joined some facebook groups recently for people with vestibular disorders. Its been really helpful to find others with similar struggles- perhaps our time in Aus would have been easier if we had known others then (maybe not, we might only be ready for this now).

Most have had their lives changed dramatically- they can't work full time anymore, or sometimes at all, they can't look after their kids, they can't drive. Its only diagnosed after eliminating other things, and by the pattern of symptoms so it usually takes months to work out what you have before you can even think about how to manage it.  By that time its already taken a big toll on your mental health, social life, work life etc.

And from reading what other write it seems some people have worked out their triggers, but for many it seems so random. Sometimes cheese sets it off, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the attacks come out of no where, often the buzzing and ear pressure is just always there and you have to try to live with it.

The diagnoses from a sydney doc was "vestibular migraine", but if I use that term people often assume its a headache thing (and there is a headache involved actually, but its more an ear thing).

Members discuss things like whether its useful to go to the ER at hospital if things become acute. Theres not much they can do for most ppl , and it seems many doctors aren't really aware of these disorders anyway.

People often have trouble explaining it to their family and friends, its probably the same for any invisible chronic illness (or many others things). Family often think members are making it up, or get frustrated when sufferers keep not showing up to things. They get blamed for being unreliable and/ or lazy.

It seems like there are lots of different drugs people are trying.

Thankfully SOeun's symptoms are much less debilitating in Cambodia, so he can do many things here and live almost normally. It s hard when he is a bit sick though, it becomes a bigger problems than pre march 2011. Life is still frustrating but not as bad as when in Aus.

Just a short plane ride away is Bangkok, full of doctors and hospitals. Maybe we should start seeing a doctor there to help with management or maybe that would be a waste of time and money? Its hard to know.

"Maybe the mosquito thought you were a child, that's why it bit you and you got dengue fever"
That's what the teachers said the first day I was back at school after being sick. It wasn't just the people at the market and the doctor, it seems many Khmer people really think of Dengue as a kids disease, as that's what it is for Khmer people.
Anyway I got better from that, but then Soeun wasn't feeling himself for awhile, just as he started to get a bit better (he's still not totally normal) I had a night of diarrhea/vomiting and the sore tummy lasted all the next day. Once I was better from that, Soeun had a really sore tummy, unknown source, and he was meant to preach that morning at church! But we both seem healthy today, hopefully it will stay that way.

Our friend’s father recently passed away after being sick for some time. Our friend and her mother are Christians, and are so thankful that their father/husband accepted Jesus just before he died.

Recently I’ve heard of a few Christians who have ended up having a Buddhist funeral. As soon as some dies, or when they are dying, the monks are called in to carry out the Buddhist rituals. Apparently it all happens automatically, with friends and neighbours playing their part. As the major religion is Buddhism, and many parts of life are very religious it seems that everyone knows the proper thing to do when someone dies. So this is how Christians end up having Buddhist funerals, even when they have lived their life as a Christian and their family knows they are not Buddhist.

In the case of our friend, if she’d wanted her father to have a Christian funeral, she and her mum would have had to confront her relatives with this strange idea. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do at any time- but especially hard if you were to do it the same hour your father/husband had passed away. So I think they just let everyone take care of everything, knowing it was only his body and that they will see him again.

Our news

This year we started going to a new church. Soeun has already begun helping with music and preaching. Its nice to go somewhere together and fairly close to our home. I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of Khmer I can understand. Although maybe I shouldn't be surprised as the main thing I've been doing is studying the language! And there is still so much I don't understand. I've been writing about it under the topic of church on our other blog if you want to know more.

I have started helping some Khmer people teach English. Khmer teachers, Khmer kids, but all in English- they are amazing! My role is to help the teachers with their English and with class activities. My only training and experience in English language teaching is with adults, so I'm finding it challenging to think of learning activities for kids. Five year olds are quite different to adults! I'm blogging about it on the other blog under Bilingual school.

So I have been getting to know lots of new people which is both exciting and exhausting. It has been hard as I have had a cold on and off all for about a month. I keep thinking I'm better but then I get sick again. Very frustrating!

Second semester at the Bible school is beginning this week, so the students are back after a week holiday and Soeun is back teaching again. He was marking papers most of last week- one of his least favourite parts of the job. 

This semester Teacher Soeun is teaching two subjects: Intro to Preaching and Observation (as in observing the Bible)

Oh, and the project evaluation is underway!

Recently on the other blog

Thanks for reading our main blog, if you are Extra interested have a look at Kronicle Extra where I tend to write more personally and more often. Recently I wrote about my language learning adventures, our church situation, food and more! Plus I added some new links and music.

Are we home yet?

From above, the hot, tropical midday sun beat down. From below the dark red-brown rainy season mud splashed and splished around, often upwards on to the motorbike riders surrounding us.

We, and almost the whole city were heading back into town after the nation wide festival. The two lane road was being used as a four lane road. From our car we had a great view of the mini buses, motos, and various other vehicles that were packed full, as an Aussie I would say more than full.

I’ve lived in Asia for four years but I’m still amazed at the amount of people and things that can be packed into houses, beds, classrooms, cars, buses, on bikes, motorbikes and other vehicles I’m not sure what to call.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think to bring the camera.” Soeun said for about the fourth time. Even my Cambodian husband was amazed at the sight that surrounded us.

Rice sacks, backpacks, suitcases, guitar cases, bundles of sugar cane, motorbikes, bikes were tied on to the tops and sides of vans. Arms and heads could be seen protruding out the windows. Sometimes the hands would be letting rubbish fall on the ground, and sometimes the heads would be ejecting vomit.

To read in full click here.

Coffee and mud

Well today I woke up and went downstairs to our kitchen. As usual I began to make coffee for Soeun, and decided I would have some as well. As I was spooning the coffee into the plunger (French Press), I saw something strange.
I wasn't quite awake yet, so it took awhile for me to work out. I had dug the spoon down into the tin of coffee and when I brought it up again, nestled in the ground coffee was the body of a large cockroach! Ewwww! (or "eh eh" in Khmer). It made me feel sick, I thought I was about to vomit. We almost drank cockroach infused coffee. Depending on when it got into the tin, we may have been already drinking cockroach coffee.........
From my reaction you would never guess that I spent some years living in inner city Sydney. There were cockroaches everywhere in my house those days, in the weetbix box, in the cup of tea, on the baked pumpkin, in the kettle. But I don't see them much these days.
When I was ready to go out for the day, I got on my bike and rode towards the school gate that leads on to a road that we haven't seen for 2 months because of the water. As I was going out the students coming in warned me that the road was really bad today.
I already had my jeans rolled up so hopefully they wouldn't get wet when I went through the water, I knew the road was flooded.
But when I got past the flooded bit I found out why they were warning me. It was really muddy and slippery. It was a kind of muddy I hadn't encountered before, and I have been in a lot of mud, especially in the last 2 months. This mud was really sticky and had to walk through. My rubber flip flops got left behind as I walk, so I tried carrying them (which made my hands muddy). But then I found my feet couldn't grip the ground enough to walk, so I put them back on. I was walking my bike at this stage, but thought perhaps if I ride my bike the speed and weight will get me through this sticky patch.
So I got on my bike.
Well, attempted to anyway. My feet slipped from under me, and my bike and I fell into the mud. My bag fell out of my bike basket and got muddy too. Everything so muddy and slippery.
So there I was in the middle of the road, during the morning peak time, trying to get up, but it was just soo slippery. Then out of nowhere a lady who works in the school office walked towards me and helped my get my bike upright. After that I was able to be on my way. Although I still had to battle traffic jams, which was hard as going slowly when your feet and your flip flops are caked in slippery mud is not easy. I tried to scrape some of the mud off but there was still a lot there.
Anyway, I finally got to where I was going and scraped and scrubbed it all off. My jeans and bag and bike are yet to be de-mudded.
I didn't get hurt and I was in a good mood, so it was more an amusing experience that traumatic.

Teacher Soeun at work this week

These days we have been...

Kimsoeun loves eating Korean spicy cabbage dish called kimchi (not sure how to spell it). Here are some photos of him making some the other day.

Recently I have been wondering about some things such as: When will our roads will reemerge from the water? How should a person from a developed country live, when they are living in a developing country as part of a local family (I miss Medicare has some of my thoughts)? What an interesting and useful book China Ramblings is.

Driving lessons

Earlier this year I had driving lessons at a driving school in town. I did the ten hours of driving lessons but haven’t done much since. I’m not ready for the exam- need to do lots more practise but not sure how.

Soeun has his driving license and we asked the driving school about the laws. If Soeun is in the car with me can I drive around Phnom Penh to practise driving? Her answer was something like, there is no rule about it, just try to do it on the outskirts of town. I think the general gist was its ok as long as the police don’t see you, (the general gist of lots of answers). People drive around without car or moto license but I think as a foreigner I’d be more noticeable.

Anyway, recently we had a rare Saturday- Soeun was free all day! Usually he meets for music in the morning at a friends church, then goes to youth group at his church in the afternoon (and finishes off his sermon if he is preaching the next day.) But the Saturday in question his music group and youth group weren’t meeting, and his sermon was done. So we spent some time on campus with the car, me behind the wheel practising parking mainly.Hopefully when the roads dry up Soeun will have another free Saturday for more driving lessons.

Holiday!

I just had an Aussie holiday in the comfort of my own home! A friend from Australia came to visit me for two weeks. It was so fun to have a holiday with her. We have lived together before so it was nice to pretend we were housemates again. It was great to have a friend to do fun things with. (KS and I haven’t had overlapping holiday time yet.) Here is a photo of Ang riding Sambo the elephant at Wat Phnom!



We ate lots of Western food (rather than rice and fish that I would normally be eating); travelled by tuk tuk (I would usually ride my bike or go by motor bike taxi) and went to places that tourist go. These included places of historical/ political/ religious significance to Cambodia. In this blog post you can see some pictures of the temples near Siem Reap. One of them is Angkor Wat, which is on the Cambodian flag.

If you want to read Ang’s (aka Gelato/Dave id dah) impression of Cambodia and about all the different things we did have a look on her blog “The Adventures of Ang”. Scroll down to find what she wrote in the last 2 weeks of January (15th-27th).
And look out for her photos.

Christmas and What Next?

Recently I was in a shop and I saw a Christmas tree right next to a spirit house and here is the photo I took. Most shops and homes have spirit houses. It’s a place to give incense, food and Coke to various types of spirits- local ones, big ones, ancestors ones. Food is given to appease and/or worship them. For Christians the Christmas tree is for celebrating Jesus birth, so I thought it was interesting to see them right next to each other. In this case the tree is more to do with Western culture and commercialism, but it made me think about the Cambodian churchgoers who also go to visit Buddhist temples.
My language tutor was practising to be an angel in the college Christmas play, so before Christmas I learnt the word for angel (DAVE-id-DAH). So every Christmas play and service I went to I listened out for this word.

The most entertaining angel was the one I saw at an orphanage. The kids acted out the Christmas story to a sound track for that purpose. Whenever an angel entered the audience heard clanging Chinese music and saw a little boy jumping, spinning and kung fu kicking in the air! It was hilarious!

KS’s church celebrated Christmas on Dec 23rd. They also acted out the story, but to a song KS wrote.

Christmas Day, KS had the day off. We belatedly celebrated our wedding anniversary as well as Jesus’ birth. In the evening we went to a dinner for Cambodian church leaders.

Here are some photos from the day we went on a picnic out of town. You can see fish with lemongrass shoved down their throat, and Soeun in front of a field.

We’re glad December is over. I guess it’s always a busy time at church leading up to Christmas. This year as well as working at college has taken on role of co-leading the church. Among other things this means preaching about twice a month, so weekend are often busy anyway. Adding Christmas preparation to that mix made it even busier! It would be good if the church had more people on the preaching roster.

The Friday before Christmas I had my last language class at the university. I studied Khmer language there for nine months, this month I’m beginning a new phase of language study. Although I won’t start properly until next month, this month there are a few other things happening.

These days...

The other weekend we went out of town with a group from college. I don't go out of the city much, and whenever I do I see lots of things I've never seen before. Can you guess what we’re doing in this photo?

To get to where we were going we had to cross the river on a ferry. The photo below I ook when we were on it. Our moto was right at the front, I felt like we were about to drive into the river!

Our church building has been flooded the last 5 Sundays, so we have been meeting peoples houses. Last week we had to walk along a rickety narrow bridge to get there- it was a bit scary!

I’m about half way through Level 3 Khmer language classes. I’m finding I have much more writing homework than before. I used to try to hang around outside in the late afternoon for speaking practice. At that time of day people on campus are playing sport, or sitting on the grass talking, so it’s a good time for chatting. But these days writing homework is taking up my time.

As I have already got to know people a bit, spending time speaking with them is a bit more natural now anyway.

Also, I just started going to an evangelistic Bible study. So far its been exciting for me because I’m starting to understand more words, and I’m enjoying trying to talk to people after the meeting.

At the end people share prayer requests. Its quite overwhelming, many people have sick family members, and/or are out of work

Beginning and Endings

This month the “ summer holidays” end and new school year starts for college, under this heading there are lots of endings and beginnings. Some notable ones for us are:

A 3rd year student has been my language tutor this year. She stayed on campus over summer so we have spent lots of time together. This month she has moved out to start work. Her job is with kids who have been rescued (from being trafficked). She was very sad to leave campus after living here for 3 years!


A girl from Denmark has just arrived and will be teaching English at college. We met up so I could tell her about the course and college. She seemed quite comfortable and happy here already!

And of course the campus will fill up with students again and KS will start teaching “Jeremiah” and “How to Study the Bible”

Another ending for me this month is finishing Level 2 of language (July-Sept). We have a two weeks off, I’m planning to spend more time doing listening and speaking. During term time I spend a lot of time writing and reading just to keep up in class, so I think I’m in need of some conversation practise. (Ask me how it’s going.)

Unrelated to academic things, but still keeping with the theme of endings and beginnings is that I have started going to a different church.

KS is committed to helping his church. He preaches at least once a month, involved with music and youth as well as working with the elders to build up leadership of members (there is no pastor).

I’ve found the moto ride there each week very un-fun, and so it’s been hard to get to know people. Its hard enough to try to speak Khmer, but adding in a sore back and general traffic exhaustion makes its even harder. Along with the fact we only see the people once a week (no one lives near us) means I’m always feeling like I want to be more involved.

So I have started going to a church that is close enough to ride my bike to, and I already know many of the people there. I would prefer if KS and I could be part of the same church, but after 7 months of trying, it wasn’t working. I hope I can get involved in my new church.

Pancakes

Language and Culture sharing usually involves food. In China and here I have tried cooking and serving Western food.

Chinese kitchens don’t come with ovens, but I had a small one, looked a bit like a microwave (similar to the one we have now, see blog post from May). I used it to bake pumpkin and one of my Chinese friends really liked it. One day I went to visit her family for dinner. She had bought a pumpkin so I could show her how to make the baked pumpkin she liked. But she had no oven.

I’ve discovered pancakes are great to cook and serve to Khmer people if I want to feed them some Western food. I can cook them using the same things Khmer people use to cook dinner everyday- our gas stove and frying pan. All the ingredients I can get at the local market. Some Western dishes I would need to make a trip to a supermarket in town. Things like cheese, butter, cocoa we can buy in Phnom Penh but only at certain shops.

In the pancake batter I put water, eggs and flour. I serve them with sugar and lime juice. Limes are common here. They are sold along side chilli and ginger at the market, rather than with fruit, as they are used a lot to flavour meat dishes.

As my previous house mates can tell you I love pancakes, they are great for any meal!

Recently we...

KS has been spending his days preparing lesson on Jeremiah. The new year will start in about a month and for the first time the college will have semesters instead of terms.

Campus life is different with most of the students away. I was worried I wouldn’t have as much opportunity to (try) speak Khmer during these months. However there are a few girls still living in the dorms next door. And with less people around I think we tend to spend more time together, sharing food, talking etc, than during term time.

My classmate who was evacuated cos she has Dengue is getting better. It will be awhile before she is well enough to come back, but she is much better.
Another classmate was in a car crash recently and he has just started coming back to class. There are 63 stairs up to our 3rd floor classroom, according to him. He has plaster from toe to knee, so he has time to count the stairs and he slowly makes his way up and down each day.

I’m still riding my bike to class each day, although it enjoying less. About once a week I take a moto taxi if I’m tired or its raining or something. As I was riding home recently a moto accident happened right beside me. I don’t think it was fatal but hearing the moto crunch on the road and seeing people flying through the air increased my fear of the traffic here.

Holiday, New term, Cold weather

Thanks for leaving comments on our posts. (Yes, you are correct Donna, my liver is fine.) I (Katherine) just had a week off language classes. The first half my sister was visiting. It was really great to catch up with her and show her around a bit. She seemed to enjoy her time here, she even had a language lesson with my mother in law as well as making herself a prahok sandwich. After she left I continued my holiday by sitting at home reading, and cooking and eating.

KS however wasn't on holidays, in fact the last 2 weeks have been extra busy trying to get marking done on time, plus he has had a cold. He has been spending lots of time in the office, finally on Sunday night just after 10pm he came home and said he was finished. So now hopefully he can have some time to get rid of his cold!

So now I've started level 2. Class is much later in the day. Last month I was really worried about this cos I ride a bike and its so hot. Last term I got a headache at least once a week and esp if I left uni a bit later. So now that I'm riding home around noon I thought it would be worse. However this week its been sooo cold! The night before last I couldn't sleep cos I was so cold. I wore socks!!! ( I don't think I've ever done that here.) Our bedside clock has a temperature thing on it. Usually it says 30 in the morning, but this week its been saying 25. (KS bought it for $1 so i don't know if it works.)

A Wedding photo of us

The photo guy told us to put on a serious face. So my new husband did that and I tried my hardest!

This is our back yard. Our water filter is that grey thing on the right, thats how we do our drinking water. We have a big container inside we fill up from the filter. (Our back door is just off the right of the photo.) Can you see our washing line? Its some white string KS put up from the fence to our kitchen window. Its got a blue peg frame on it in this photo. Next to our place is the girls dorms. When I hang out the washing I can see into their back area where they wash their clothes in plastic basins on the ground. The buliding beyond that is the new worship hall. The wall to the left is the college fence topped with barbed wire. And you can see the drain with the blue water pipes on top.

My bike!

Last year I mainly went places on motor bike taxis (motodups). This year I'm mostly using my bike, its much cheaper and it doesn't give me a sore back like the motos do. KS took this photo of my the other morning at 7am as I set out for class. Even though its early in the day I like to wear the long sleeve shirt and mask for sun (and dust and petrol fume) protection. I ride straight into the sun for most of the trip so the sunnies are pretty important too.

Behind me you can see our house. Our front door is the one on the right of me in the photo.

Its nice having grass out the front, and trees. Last year I really missed seeing greeness and having space outside. Living on campus is great!