Last night I went to bed feeling absolutely awful. So this morning, I called into school and decided to go to the doctor. My host mum made an appointment for me. She called at 1045 and got an appointment for 1150 (amazing!). So I walked up to the medical place in Dorking. I went to the front desk and, since I'm not British, I apparently count as a private patient, which means I have to pay. £47.25 to be exact. Then I sat down in the waiting room. Instead of having nurses come out and call your name, they have a screen that flashes your name, which doctor you go to, and what room. When your name flashes, you walk back to the room where the doctor is waiting. No nurses to weigh you, take your blood pressure, temperature, pulse. None of that nonsense.
So Dr. Husein (that's how he introduced himself, his first name. I won't even try his last name.) asked me the normal "are you allergic to anything, what medicines do you take" questions. I told him I'd been taking Mucinex for the cough because it's supposed to help and he told me I didn't need to do that because I was too young for Mucinex............. what? Anyway, then he listened to my breathing and told me I have a chest infection. I got some antibiotics from the pharmacy (which surprisingly only cost £5.50). While in the pharmacy, I checked out some other medicines they had laying around. British are just so practical. There was medicine called "4Head" for (you guessed it) headaches. And a medicine called "Anusol"... make your own judgements about what that was for. I literally didn't recognize a single medication in the entire pharmacy. And I only had to wait about 5 minutes for my prescription!
From the time I left my house to the time I got back to my house, the process took less than an hour. That's unheard of in America!
I'm now going to sleep the rest of the day away.
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