A walking disaster

I have been in Lebanon for a mere three and a half months, and it has really sought to destroy me. In that short amount of time, I have:

• Had food poisoning four times, once for a whole week that made Montezuma seem merciful.
• Had several respiratory infections, two of which were pretty bad, one of which I tried to ignore and ended up passing it on to Amigo, who didn’t open his bar one Saturday night because he was so sick.
• Had shoulder tendonitis from playing darts – that was at the beginning. Apparently after playing so much for so many weeks, I have strengthened whatever tendons were inflamed and don’t have that problem any more.
• Hurt my back to the point where I couldn’t sit for more than an hour at a time without unbearable pain. I don’t know how I hurt it, but I think it was when I tripped over some random metal thing sticking out of a sidewalk.
• Had numbness in my left hand for a still unidentified reason.
• And the latest – Yesterday as I was walking home from the office, I turned to look at the progress made at the construction site next to the Roman columns downtown when suddenly I felt like my legs had been blown off at the knees. Turns out it was only a very hard park bench. Today not one but both knees are swollen enough that it hurts to walk.

What a mess.