and started the treatment. And this isn't the kind of malaria that will
stay in my body forever. Once it's treated, it's gone. So everyone relax!
It started Tuesday night when I just could not get to sleep. I was achy all
over and felt a little bit feverish. By Wednesday morning, getting out of
bed was not an option, and I got progressively worse throughout the day. I
would go through cycles of feeling very cold and shivering, to extremely
hot, to sweaty and clammy. My fever stayed between 101-102. The body aches
were the worst I've ever experienced, and I had a constant headache with a
sharp shooting pain in the back of my head every 5-8 minutes. I was taking
Tylenol, and that seemed to help a little bit, but as soon as it wore off I
knew it. Wednesday night all of the above continued, but throw in some
diarrhea for extra excitement. Nothing like dealing with the broken toilet
seat that pinches your behind every hour or so in the middle of the night.
Thank you Matt for the wet wipes!
Anyway, the 'malaria' section in my Lonely Planet Africa Health Guide pretty
much described my condition to a T, even the diarrhea (who knew?) so I knew
I needed to get treatment. My housemate kept insisting that I go to a
private doctor in rundu, but there was no way I was going to be able to sit
in a car for 2 hours. So I asked one of the teachers with a car to take me
to the local clinic. Everyone here calls it a clinic, so I expected a
random concrete house somewhere in the bush (I knew it was off a dirt road,
not even the tar road). As it turned out, it's a full on hospital. A
pretty nice one in fact. Thankfully it wasn't super busy so it wasn't long
before I was seen. My temp was still 102. The nurse did a finger prick
blood test for malaria that came back negative. She shook her head and
tsked. "These are always wrong", she said, "in my almost 2 years at this
hospital I've seen it positive only 4 times."
Then I saw the doctor, who's English was surprisingly bad and his accent +
speaking very softly made him really difficult to understand. Early on he
asked me, "why are you here?" huh? Um, to get treatment? He was asking
why I was in Africa. Anyway, he ordered a urine test. The results came
back surprisingly quickly. Parasites found. I don't know if you can tell
the exact kind of parasite from the urine test so (I'm guessing) he took the
shotgun approach and prescribed malaria meds, cipro and metronidazole which
is another parasite killer. I'm kind of sketched about taking all those
meds, especially with zero appetite, so I'll most likely stop the cipro
after 3 days. The whole thing cost 8 Namibian Dollars, or 1 USD. I was
glad I got there early though; the line to be seen was pretty long as I was
leaving.
I've had a constant stream of visitors checking on me which has been very
sweet (though not so great to be woken up and to have to get out of bed to
answer the door). My principal arranged for a car to take me to Rundu
tomorrow (again with this private doctor thing). I told him I was already
feeling better so I didn't think I needed to see another doctor. Before
this malaria business I had planned on going to rundu and then to
Rachel/mita's for the weekend. So I told him that and he said that was
fine, that I should go and it was ok if I didn't go to the private doctor.
But either way I would be closer to medical care.
To make matters worse, we lost power for about 10 hours on Wednesday which
means no cell network/internet (and my cold water in the fridge
not-so-much). The power came back Wednesday night, but the cell network
stayed down until about 3 pm today (Thurs). It's so much worse being sick
when you can't complain to anyone!! I almost started crying a bit in the
hospital.
But anyway, cell is back, internet is back, and I'm on the mend. I'm still
kinda achy and have no appetite, and of course am super tired, but it's no
where near the pain from the last couple of days.
Alrighty, I'm off to bed.
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