Chapter 16 Fieldwork
For this interview I interviewed my friend Malcolm. He doesn’t get sick very often because he takes vitamins and eats healthy, but when he does, he doesn’t call anyone. To get well, he tries to drink lots of water and rest as much as he can. Another strategy he likes to use is sweating out the sickness, so he sleeps with the heat on. Sometimes when he has a cold or a fever it’s not that noticeable because he already has allergies. When he has bad allergy symptoms, he takes Zyrtec. When he has a cold, he takes Mucinex to get I’m through the day and Benadryl at night. The reasoning for taking Benadryl at night is because it makes you tired and he doesn’t want to have to go through the day feeling too tired. His family is from the United States, so he only knows what he was raised around, so he doesn’t know any practices that are from outside the US. When he has stomach aches or pains, he will try to use the bathroom, or use a heating pad. His healing strategies are not specified from family or culture. “I just do what I think is best for me”, Is what he responded, when I asked. He doesn’t smoke or do any drugs or alcohol substances so none of his healing strategies are guided by that. When he is sick, he really is not sure what got him sick, unless he is around someone who he knows is sick. He washes his hands at necessary times, when using the bathroom, before dinner etc. His choice of drinking water doesn’t seem to be the problem ever, because he inly drinks bottled water. When he is sick, he just stays in his room, being that we are on campus with lots of people, he doesn’t want anyone to catch anything he has so he stays in his room. For necessities, he asks his roommate or any of his friends to help him out. He will only take medications for his symptoms but once the cold is over, he doesn’t take them anymore. When he gets sick it makes him angry. He is no longer allowed to move the way he wants to move. This meaning that he must cancel and rearrange his schedule to fit what’s more convenient for him in that state. If he has certain symptoms, he doesn’t automatically assume that he knows what he has, because that could put more stress on him and make his sickness worse. He always goes to get tested when he knows his body feels off. Nowadays we can’t have a regular cold without having the fear that it might be covid, so he always makes sure to get tested. When he is sick, he says that the last thing on his mind is the price it costs to get better. He doesn’t mind paying for medica bills if he knows its for a good cause.










