The Chinese Black Lung
2015-05-29
In my last post, I shared advice from some of my students. Now, I'm asking for YOUR advice.My body has not handled the pollution in China well at all. I'm positive that if I were to get an x-ray of my lungs they would be a shade darker than they were when I first arrived in China. I have had a cough for the last seven months...yes, seven! The severity of it fluctuates but it's been my companion since November. Usually when I get a cold or a cough, my approach is to just "let it pass." I tried that for the first month or so until my assistant managed to convince me to get some medicine. She loaded me up with all sorts of Chinese medicines, none of which helped. In January, I realized I wasn't getting better on my own (and all my Chinese students' well-meaning advice to "drink more hot water!" wasn't doing it for me) and so I went to a Western doctor. She prescribed a Z-pack and an inhaler. I figured the antibiotics in the Z-pack would knock it out. At first, it seemed promising, but only a week later the cough had returned.
I know lots of foreigners have similar experiences with "China coughs" and so I'm hoping one of you also has a solution. I'll be returning to the US in 3 weeks and am crossing my fingers that when my lungs taste the American air my cough will just disappear. However, even if it does go away, I'll be back in China in August and am concerned about the cough coming back.
This is one of those battles where China has definitely got the upperhand...
CHINA VS. KELLI SCORE
CHINA: 7
KELLI: 0
Any suggestions? What has helped you?
--Kelli 凯丽
I would term it as "Occupational Hazard".
7 months is pretty long time, after living in clean environment it seems your body is not able to adapt to the pollution.
The post is few months old so I hope you are well and recovered by now.
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