The Multi-Vitamin Challenge

Back in November I caught a nasty cold. Ever since then my health has been wavering between well and unwell. It seems that every couple of weeks I get another sore throat, which leads to another stuffed up nose, which leads to another full blown head cold. Yes, right now I am in fact fighting off yet another wave of the neverending cold (Sidenote: watch the Neverending Story, it’s awesome). Apparently my immune system can’t handle the onslaught of pollution and germs in the air here… at least, not by itself! Yesterday I was chatting with my friend, Cam Stutters, who also did an overseas internship (his was in Laos). He told me that what I need are multi-vitamins. He was so confident in this that he told me, “If you don’t feel better after thirty days of taking vitamins, I will reimburse you for the money you spent on the vitamins.” That sounded good to me! There was no way I could lose! Well, I suppose if I was still sick after the thirty days I would be a loser, but that’s besides the fact. At any rate, last night I went out and loaded up with thirty days worth of multi-vitamins and vitamin C. For the next thirty days, I will be taking:

One 500mg tablet containing Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C, apparently)
and two Vitamax Plus tablets, each containing… far too much to type out. Looking at the ingredients of this pill makes me think that eating will no longer be necessary for me. I think I will continue eating, though, merely as a hobby. I do enjoy it from time to time. Especially when we get together for our newly begat bi-weekly Thai night. But let’s get back on topic here. Since this blog entry is about health and such, I should take the time to address something that is plaguing Egypt right now. The Bird Flu. If you haven’t been keeping up with the news lately, cases of the Bird Flu have been found here in Cairo. This means that the poultry market here is rapidly crashing. Very few people want to buy chicken now for fear of contracting the deadly virus. Since few people want to buy chicken, most markets won’t even stock chicken at this point in time. A few minutes ago I was told that there are warnings on the television and radio that nobody in Cairo is to drink the water here. Apparently loads of animals that have died from the flu have been thrown into the water (or something to that effect). You normally don’t drink the water in Cairo anyways, at least not without a filter, but even with a filter we have been told not to drink it now. Nor are we to cook with it. Apparently even boiling the water won’t rid it of whatever has gotten into it. It’s hard to say since facts don’t seem to travel around Egypt with much integrity. Nonetheless, it looks as though beef is going to be the only meat left for us to eat here for the next little while (pork is not a kosher meat in the dominant religion so it is also very hard to find in Egypt). Let’s hope the mad cow disease doesn’t find its way here as well. If it does, I’m gonna have to go tell Pharaoh to “Let my people go!” (They did, in fact, have a plague of locusts here last year). Stay tuned for my next health entry about parasites!