Malaria sucks, y'all

Well howdy folks.  As many of you know by now, I’ve had a little bit of an adventure the last couple of days.  It all started Friday during my bucket shower when I was feeling a little woozy.  I thought to myself “put on your big girl panties, Lily” and continued with my morning until while sitting eating my breakfast I got unreasonably emotional and began feeling a little disoriented.  After bursting into tears in the hallway, my host mom made me call in late to work. I lay down for a little while and consulted my trusty Bradt guild, which informed me that the sudden onset of nausea, and the headache, dizziness, and disorientation meant (bum bum buuuum) that I should go to the doctor immediately.

 I was picked up by Brooke, one of the wonderful proworld staffers, who gently rushed me to the clinic.  After seeing the doctor who proclaimed that he was 99% sure I had malaria, I had the test run anyways, and after only about a 2 hour wait (where I slept curled up in what seemed to be old theater seats outside of the laboratory with the one eyed lab tech with about 30 other people) I got my newest Ghana souvenir of the little sheet officially saying I had got the bug.

 I thought to myself “this isn’t so bad.  You’ve been sick before” and the doctor even mentioned that I was looking pretty strong for having “severe malaria”.  He asked if I’d barfed yet, I said no and he laughed heartily and responded with “not yet!”

I do have to say however that in the clinic the service that I received was exemplary, and although I know much of that had to do with the color of my skin, that’s one form of racism I’m just not ready to complain about. They did, however, read my passport wrong and thus I was called by my middle name, Katherine, all day.  It’s also written on all of my paperwork.  Honestly, I just really didn’t care. 

They decided that the emergency intervention was the best idea because of the impending barf-iness of the situation, and due to the amount of the parasite in my blood sample.  "Over reaction", I thought at the time. But then (faint of heart, look away) I got to have a shot in my bum, and was hooked up to a slow drip IV.  Suddenly, BAM!  I felt like utter shit.  Turning over in my clinic cot was struggle city.  But, my lovely friends and host family came to visit, and then about 4 hours later to take me home. 

I may have mentioned the 5 flights of stairs to get to my house here.  And by five flights of stairs I mean the hugest, most daunting feat of sheer athletic prowess I’ve ever completed.  It took like 20 min, and my dear Margarita’s support to make it all the way to my room. 

So here I am.  I’ve been basically stuck in my upstairs room since then.  I had the panic moment later that night when I realized my muscles were seizing, and my fever was rapidly spiking.  I was comforted with the news that “it will just get worse before it gets better”.  The meds are half the bad part honestly, and make you want to barf and crawl into a tiny ball.  A feeling you must fight in order to keep the drugs in your system.  

My host mom was quickly back to trying to feed my too much, and has been very supportive, even if she is convinced its all “just the change of environment’.  “Nooooo… I think to myself, I think it’s that whole pesky parasitic-mosquito-thing”.  I do have to admit that the idea of a fresh salad for dinner that night was appealing until I was muscling my way through a raw onion, green onion, tomato, and cabbage salad.  But I digress. 

For anyone who wants to ask: Yes, I sleep under a net every night.  Yes, I have diligently taken my meds every day; I must have gotten the resistant strain.  Yes, I wear bug repellant every single day.  Shit happens folks.  Luckily, I’m starting to feel better, and have the energy to be bored already.  TO THE NEXT ADVENTURE!!

*this is a later update made a couple of days after writing this – Malaria sucks everybody.  Malaria sucks real bad.  Its been a miserable up and down where when I wrote this I was feeling pretty alright, the next day I was feeling like death, the next day I was feeling alright, and then today, I made it to work and now I’m kinda stuck here because I really honestly don’t have the energy to get home.  So… malaria sucks.  That’s just the truth. 

What I told everyone it felt like to have malaria:

 What it actually feels like to have malaria: