Bursa Bursa

Last Monday I went to my first yoga class taught only in Vietnamese. Our instructor could place his legs in the lotus position, arch his back and head, throw his 'lotus legs' over his head, touching the tip of his nose. I like yoga. I do not attend yoga class as much as I should, but I enjoy the concept and the practice; however, this yoga class was the most intense and hot yoga class that I have ever attended. I tried my best to hold the headstand, placing unholy pressure on my elbows again and again and again.

Fast-forward to Wednesday's professional development meeting. All our staff, grades K-12, are sitting in the auditorium and my elbow begins to ache. I try to listen to the presentation and statistics, then the room begins to blur, so I stretch my right arm, left arm.... Wait!!! My left elbow is the size of a chicken egg. I am convinced that I have been bitten by a poisonous bug, which will cause immediate death. I think this because if there's one route my brain likes to take, it's the slippery slope: from A to Z. I quickly walk over to my vice principal holding up my inflated elbow. She takes me to the nurse who bandages my swelling, and I am rushed off to the nearest hospital. At the hospital, they stick and iv in me and tell me to calm down about ten times. "Calm down, miss. Calm down." I think I look pretty calm, but they keep telling me this, so I must have looked horrified. Truth be told, I was pretty nervous and when I'm nervous, all the color leaves my face. When I feel out of sorts, sick or nervous there's nothing I like more than a good story, so my v.p. told me stories of giving birth in the middle east: rushing, in the middle of the night to the king's hospital, covered and veiled. I laughed my way to the doctor coming in to detach me from the iv and tell me about elbow bursitis. My elbow bursts and was infected (who knows how), and now, she tells me, I will have liquid and pain to deal with for a bit. How long is a bit? She handed me a prescription for antibiotics and advil and sent me on my semi-crippled way. 

I'm in the healing process right now, which is a place between routine work and dreamland. I haven't photographed the whole experience, but I will forever remember my trips to FV hospital during my second month here. I guess the moral of the story is Vietnamese yoga is not for me, or at least not for my elbow! 

On a less serious side note, I still look like Drew Barrymore in Vietnam. I thought I would escape the curse of this observation in southeast asia, but no, no, not even close. "Ms. Jones, do you know Drew Barrymore?" "Well, not personally." "You look like her." "Uh, huh." Drat!!!!