An unexpected turn to my day

My new set of pills

Waking up this morning was a real struggle; I could not get myself out of bed. Waking up at 6 Monday-Friday was hard enough, because I am use to working night shift at the hospital and rarely having to get up early, let alone 5 days in a row. This morning I just did not feel right, and to add to that, it was extremely cold, but I dragged myself out of bed, thinking thank goodness it is Friday.  I had headache, stomachache, weakness, fatigue and neck stiffness. None of these symptoms seemed alarming to me, I told Harriet and just went to work. I did not bother to tell Julie, our head missionary nurse but Harriet thought they should know. They told me that I might have Malaria and that I should get tested. They took a sample of my blood and put it on a slide to test it once it dried. I decided I wasn’t that bad and keep going on with the workday. I kept feeling tired and weak and everyone wanted me to go home and rest. Around 9 o clock they finally convinced me.

Before I left I had to check on Robert to see how he was doing. He was out of bed and I was very happy about that. He was still in a lot of pain and was throwing up after eating food. I explained to the father he needs to stick with liquids right now and to slowly work his way up to solids. I don’t know if he understood me because he keep nodding and saying “ya” ha-ha, I tired. I went to get him some pain medication, which is only Tylenol (usually after surgery it is morphine, poor kid.) I said my good byes and let him know I would check on him tomorrow, praying Robert will be better, I guess only time will tell.

I went straight home and went to bed, I fell asleep, to be woken up around 11 with Julie entering the house. I thought I was dreaming, it was like I couldn’t wake up. She came into my room, telling me that the slide came back and I had Malaria, I was like “what, there is no way I have it.” I thought I was still dreaming, but I wasn’t and she was there with my drugs. It is a 3 day supply of 8 pills a day, 4 in the morning and 4 at night. So I sat up and took the first 4, still groggy. Then she proceeded to tell me that on Sunday I will need to start taking new Malaria pills, because mine didn’t work haha naw you think. She ended up leaving and I went back to bed. The pills made me feel very dizzy, like I was floating, it was hard for me to fall back asleep. Around 2 o clock Harry came home and brought me lunch, I got up and ate that, and felt a lot better. Then I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I just stayed up and read and did some studying. Everyone from the mission came and stopped by to see how I was doing, it was very nice. They were shocked at how well I looked, they told me I had 160 parasites from the mosquito (which isn’t very much, because they caught it early.) It is a good thing I work at a hospital and they have the resources to treat it and they know the early signs. I did not think I had many but apparently I did and had no idea. Here I was taking a nap everyday which is unusual for me and that’s a major sign.

Well now that I have scared everyone, I am doing a lot better, I will let you know tomorrow, because some times the next day is the worst, but I feel good right now, stayed in the house most of the day. We were all talking about it, trying to figure out how I got it, people don’t usually get it till 7-10 days in the country and I have been here just a week. They said that it usually hits you when your immune system is down and that would make sense because I went 5 days with barely any sleep. So, I am thinking I got it at the flight house or the airport. I did not have any bug spray on and I did not use my mosquito net while there. While I have been in Loloma I have been religious about my bug spray and net at night. You get Malaria from the lady mosquitoes, which are quiet, you can hear the males, so that’s where they get silent but deadly here. I am not itching anywhere so I have no idea where I got bit, so who knows. I am going back to the states and going to get my money back, those were expensive pills and I got Malaria within a week of being here, they need to know they don’t really work. So anyways I am so sorry I don’t have any pictures, and not really any interesting stories, we will see what tomorrow brings, off for now.