Today I’m waiting for the doctor to call. When he swung by my house on Friday, he told me that he’d stop by again on Monday and that maybe I’d get my stitches out and be cleared to ride my bike. Well, today is Monday. But I don’t know what time he’ll come. Or if it’ll be just another quick cleaning at my house. Or if he’ll take me to town to the clinic. Or maybe he won’t call and won’t come. I don’t know.
If I were in the States, this waiting and the unknown would bother me. Here, though, I’m too ashamed to even consider being bothered.
First, the doctor has done everything for me for free: xray, debridement, stitches, antibiotic, a ride to my house, and a house call. He says that because I am a volunteer who has come to help his country, he wants to do something to help me. I have failed in my attempts to express how grateful I am to him.
I recognize what a privilege I have being an American right now. I have the privilege of being able to follow through with the doctor’s orders to rest and not have to work to live. I have the privilege of the extra care my family is giving me since they recognize I am out of my element. I have the privilege of special care from the medical staff (being bumped to the front of the line ahead of people in much worse condition than me, being given a ride home from the clinic, being provided home visits, etc).
But, mostly, being sick and/or hurt while living with survivors of genocide is drastically perspective shifting. Keeping my barely-injured knee elevated while my mother tells stories of life in the Khmer Rouge and my father stretches out his leg scarred from the war…well, I can’t really express what that does to one’s paradigm of pain and health and life moving on.
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