Graz–May. 20, 2025

Hospital Time! (part 1)

So it’s pollen season here, and yesterday, I apparently had an allergic reaction to it. I guess I’m not used to the pollen out here. My nose was totally blocked and my throat was swollen. (My uvula felt like a bit of phlegm, and I was trying to cough it up. Luckily, I did not succeed.)

This was causing some breathing problems, so I went to the local hospital clinic, as I don’t yet have a personal physician. They scolded me about that; told me I really need to find one. After an examination, they decided to keep me overnight at the hospital for observation. They gave me intravenous cortisol, nose drops, and nose spray. The nose drops, which contain “silver proteinate with vasoconstrictor ephedrine”, whatever that is, were amazing; they cleared things up very quickly.

The hospital room had four other people in it. There are no partitions between the beds, and there’s a table where we could sit to eat meals or read or whatever. Each person also had a locker to store their stuff, and there was a common bathroom with shower. The hospital food was OK; dinner was rye bread and ham, with tea to drink and a banana for dessert. One guy had a bottle of soda, and I asked him where he got it. He said he got it across the street. Apparently patients can go out on their own, though I wasn’t quite feeling up to it.