A Bump in the Night and a Shot in the Butt

A week ago I had the worst day of my Peace Corps service so far. This isn’t really saying a whole lot because my bad mood had absolutely nothing to do with anything Peace Corps related and by the next morning, I was feeling like my normal self again, but it was, nevertheless, a pretty unpleasant day.

A lot of small things had been building up for a while—the terribly moldy smell emanating from everything in my room (the sheets, my book bag, my towels…everything that could mold did), a small invasion of mice, the recurring problems with ants (one terrible morning I found ants nibbling on the body of a mouse I’d successfully poisoned. It was a bittersweet moment.), and I’d been travelling a lot which was really wearing me down. Toward the end of my travels, I got a nasty cold which ended up going to my chest, giving me a cough that kept me up at night and woke me up early in the morning. 

All of these things had been wearing on me for a little while, but they all culminated after my travels with Yente. I had planned to stay in Kyiv for a few days after she left in order to work on paperwork for my grant and after a few nights without getting any sleep, I woke up with a weird bump near my right knee. It looked and felt like an insect bite of some sort. Throughout the course of the day, the bump continued to grow and grow and then, to itch and burn. 

I was immediately a little nervous because the owner of the hostel I was staying in had been recovering from a mysterious spider bite that caused his entire arm to swell to almost twice its ordinary size and this looked and felt like a spider bite. The skin was really swollen and hard, incredibly hot and painfully itchy. By the end of the evening, what began as a small spot on my leg had turned into a lump the diameter of a baseball with several small blisters at the center. I took a few Benadryl and went to sleep, hoping for the best. The next morning, I woke up to find that the small blisters had turned into one big blister the size of a black bean and the swollen, red lump had grown to the size of  softball. It hurt. A lot. 

That morning, I’d been planning to go to the bank to open up my grant paperwork but instead I went straight to the Peace Corps Medical Office, leg throbbing all the way. I walked into the doctor’s office, promptly pulled up my skirt and showed the doctor my disturbingly swollen leg, who sighed and said “Oh Laura…what did you do?” 

After inspecting it for a few minutes and grilling me about the possible culprit (I really have no idea. I’m still guessing spider bite, although after the first three or so hours, this bite became unlike any other spider bite I’ve ever had), the doctor walked out of the room. He came back in with a syringe and said something I didn’t really understand. I assumed he said some medical word that I didn’t understand and said “okay.” Then he looked at me a little funny and repeated himself, holding the syringe in the air. 

“Unfortunately, the best place for this shot is your right butt. So I need your right butt.” 

I haven’t had a shot in the butt in my entire adult or even adolescent life. In fact, as far as I can recall, I’ve never had a shot in the butt. I responded with sullen outrage. 

“Dr. Valeriy! Are you seriously going to give me a shot in the butt? Why can’t you give it to me in my arm? Does it have to go in my butt??”

Still prepping the shot, Dr. Valeriy chuckled in the way only a doctor wielding a syringe can. 

“What is it with you Americans and shots in the butt? Why do you always want it in the arm? The butt is the best place for a shot. It’s much less painful.” 

I began to whine a little bit more but Dr. Valeriy quickly cut me off. 

“Whatever, Laura. Give me your right butt.” 

I sighed, resigned myself to my fate, rolled over on the table and pulled up my skirt again. Dr. Valeriy wasted no time stabbing me in the butt and before I knew it the shot was over. It really was less painful. Maybe that’s just because I literally couldn’t see it coming, but regardless, the only real discomfort was just in rolling over and preparing for a shot in the butt. The shot itself wasn’t so bad. 

Anyway…this shot of Benadryl made me incredibly sleepy. Before I knew it, I was passed out on the couch in the volunteer lounge, sleeping and waiting to see what would happen with the softball-sized lump on my leg. 

(it got even bigger after this photo was taken)

Eventually I pulled myself out of the Benadryl-induced stupor and limped to the bank to open the paperwork that was the main reason I was in Kyiv to begin with. I successfully opened the bank account for my grant, but in the process, opened my wallet and realized that my American check card was nowhere to be found. 

For what was (so depressingly) the fifth time in my life, I realized that I’d left my bank card in the ATM. I’d been hanging out with friends the day before and withdrew money from my American bank account because I’d run already spent all the money in my Peace Corps bank account that month (yet another stress to add to the growing list). 

In a haze of sleepy, Benadryl and spider-bite-affected depression, I thought to myself, “I can’t deal with this. I just can’t. I’ll just cancel the card.” 

I dragged myself back to the Peace Corps office, and collapsed, leg-throbbing, on a couch in the volunteer lounge and calmly told a friend what I’d realized. As I was explaining the situation aloud, I realized that my thoughts of cancelling the bank card were completely irrational. I had 160 UAH  to my name and was more than likely going to have to spend another, unplanned night in Kyiv thanks to the still-growing lump on my leg, which would mean that I’d have to spend another 100 to stay in the hostel and if I was lucky, around 30 to exchange my train tickets for a departure the next day. If I was unlucky in exchanging the tickets (which, as it turned out, I was), I’d have to spend anywhere from another 60-80 UAH just to get new train tickets back home. But even then, if I’d cancelled my American bank card and still managed to make it back on those measly 160 UAH, I’d be back home in Chortkiv without a kopeck to my name. 

Clearly I needed to recover my bank card. 

I called the bank and was told that I needed to go the branch where I’d left the card (thank God I remembered where I lost the card, knew which bank it was, and was able to have that conversation in Ukrainian) and pick it up in person. So I walked as quickly as I could to the metro station, rode the escalator a million miles down into the ground and transferred trains as quickly as I could to get to the bank and back to the Peace Corps office in time to see the doctor before he left the office, still hoping in vain that my leg would magically recover and he’d give me permission to go back home that night on my scheduled train. 

I got to the bank, sweaty, huffy and puffy. I explained to the cashier what had happened and she calmly told me that she’d gladly give me my card back if it was the only one in the ATM, but unfortunately, if there were more cards in the ATM, she’d be unable to give me my card back. For some reason, there was different paperwork required if there were multiple cards stuck inside the ATM and this paperwork can only be done on a Friday (this all happened on a Wednesday). She walked to the machine and I crossed my fingers, hoping that I’d been the only idiot stupid enough to leave my card in the ATM. 

If my foreshadowing has been effective so far, you’ve probably guessed by now that unfortunately, I was not the only moron to leave my card in the ATM. The very polite cashier returned and told me that she wouldn’t be able to give me my card. 

I nodded my head, opened my mouth to respond, and burst into tears. I didn’t even see it coming. 

The cashier stood in awkward silence for a moment until it became clear that I was going to continue crying. She wrung her hands and apologized profusely. She was really sorry, she said. But she couldn’t give me my card. She understood my situation…and she was really sorry. She asked me please not to cry. She just couldn’t give it to me. She was really sorry. 

I continued to cry and repeated some broken variation of, “But I don’t know what to do. I need my card. I don’t have any money. I can’t wait until Friday because I don’t have enough money to stay in Kyiv” several times. 

Soon the other cashier must have felt sorry for me because he told the cashier I’d been working with, “just give her the card.” My cashier looked around for a second and then immediately went back to the ATM, got my card, and printed out a form for me to complete. As easy as that. 

Card safely back in my wallet, I made my way back to the Peace Corps office, promptly showed the doctor my leg, was given another shot (this one in the arm. The doctor was right. It really did hurt more.) and told to stay another night in Kyiv. 

I moped my way to the train station, stood in line for over an hour, broke a strap on my sandal, missed the departure of my train by the time I finally got to the ticket window and was unable to exchange my ticket at said window. I was able to return it for 20 UAH (it cost 70) and was told that in order to buy another ticket, which I now needed to do, I’d have to stand in another line. 

I didn’t have the patience to stand in line any longer, so at that point I gave up and decided to just go sleep off my stress and frustration at the hostel with an ice pack on my leg. 

The next day I woke up feeling much better, my leg didn’t look normal, but the swelling had gone down significantly, and I felt prepared to tackle Ukrainian lines again. I got myself a new train ticket, saw the doctor and got clearance to go back home. I spent the rest of the day taking care of a few errands I’d needed to finish in Kyiv before the spider bite waylaid all my plans and even got to spend some time with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. By the time I got on a train, I was feeling almost completely normal again. 

For the next day or two I was still suffering from a little residual stress and tiredness, so I wasn’t entirely feeling like myself for a few days, but by the time Monday rolled around I was ready to get back to work and looking forward to classes starting.    

I began this post with the intention of writing about how it I find it amusing that just a week ago I finally had a crappy day but that now that I’m back at school again all I can think about is the many reasons I’m glad I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. I wanted to write all about how today, just one short week after the worst day I’ve had in a long time, was one of the best days of my service so far. But I’ve spent so much time re-telling the story of my crappy day that it seems unfair to put the two next to each other like I’d planned. So I’ll save the good part for my next entry in which I’ll tell all about how great it is to be back at school and how nice it feels to be happy and content back at site after that nasty spider bite really put a damper on my mood for a few days. So check back in a few days for a much more uplifting story!