200 shows to sickness

Last night we celebrated the incredible fact that we have now performed 200 shows. OK, it's not that incredible considering that I've been committed to this show for about 18 months, but it's still quite an accomplishment. Who knew two years ago that I was about to embark on a journey that would take me to six countries that I'd never been to, and introduce me to people and cultures I could never have dreamed of. It's amazing to see how much I've done. In celebration, the cast had a cake and watched a slideshow of some of the fun shots from the show. I had no cake, and went straight to bed, because I'm sick.

It's true. Me, who never (knock on wood) gets really sick! Maybe that once a year sinus infection, but this is crazy! In my whole performing career I have never missed a show, including in high school when I had a knee injury and wore a thigh-high cast as a nurse in Whose Life Is It Anyway. Including in college when I had killer bronchitis and croaked my way through Into the Woods. I have never missed a show, until now. Now I am sitting in my hotel room with some tea and some soup, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ahhhhhh! It's so frustrating!! I have always wanted a chance for my understudy to go on, but now that it's happening it really sucks. I just have to sit at home feeling powerless and sick, and there's not even anything good on TV.

Yesterday afternoon the cold got bad. We're talking stuffed up face, drippy nose, clogged ears, coughing up green goop, etc. I felt pretty ok, but my speaking voice sounded like someone was sitting on my face. Since I could sing fine, I decided to go ahead and do the show. And even though by the end I got some great applause at my bow, I felt ridiculous. I sounded like a man in drag, and I couldn't be understood when I said things like "singing", which I realized that I said about a million times. So today I went to the hospital.

The closest hospital to our hotel is Queen Mary's, which is apparently one of the public hospitals here in Hong Kong. I woke up late, so I didn't get there until about two pm. It was quite a task trying to find my way around and get help in a mainly Chinese speaking country, but luckily there is a fair bit of English here too. I eventually found the Emergency bay, and a front desk where I had to fill out minimal paperwork, and they checked my visas and such. Then I had to wait for 30 minutes to be check out by a nurse who then would label my level of triage. I was labeled level 4, semi-emergency. Mind you I almost missed this check because they paged Miss Colleen Elizabeth, since they had entered my name in the wrong order. After being labeled by the nurse I sat in a waiting room for two hours.

In the waiting room with me were a caucoughany of people. All of them were Asian, and several of them were fascinated by me. There were a lot of tiny old people who looked like their problem was just that they didn't eat enough and were reeeealy skinny. There was totally a lady with these huge tumors all over her face just like I had seen on TV a few days ago! The couple next to me consisted of a sick girl and her juvenile boyfriend who was punching her and poking her for fun while she cried! They were all watching a TV show with some kind of crazy game going on that seemed to be lots of fun. When Colleen Elizabeth was eventually called again I was thrilled to go. I met a little lady who spent about two minutes asking my symptoms and five talking about how she's going to see SOMA on Friday. Then I had to wait for her to finish paperwork.

When she was done she sent me to the next building over, to go to the pharmacy. I stood in the wrong line twice, and then dropped off my prescription and waited for an hour and a half for my number to be called. Eventually I got some strong aspirin, some cough medicine, something to make my nose not run, and some cough drops. No good antibiotics! Crap!! The strangest thing about the whole thing was that I had to pay 100$ (about USD 12$) to register my name, and then I didn't pay anything else the whole time! No doctor's fee, and no fee for drugs! Everyone else in the cast who's done this has spent about USD 75$ on drugs and doctor's fees, so I'm a little worried. I think I didn't just walk out without paying, and even at the pharmacy they said it was free for me! How strange!

Well now I've got a whole BORING night ahead of me, since I shouldn't leave the hotel, and there's nothing good to watch and I just finished my book. Wish me luck getting better fast, cause it better happen soon.