Malaria- carlie

Malaria

It was the worst night of my life, and that is the truth.  Honestly the only thing that could have made that night worse was if I got stung or bitten by a snake/scorpion.  It started off as a perfectly normal night.  Athens and I got ready for work, I drove us on the motorbike down to the hospital.  My stomach was slightly upset but I kept thinking that it would get better as the night went on.  My stomach being upset isn’t something new.  I vomited the 3^rd day after we arrived in Africa and have vomited about one or twice a week since being here. I guess my stomach doesn’t agree with Africa.  But this time my stomach didn’t get better.  The pain kept getting worse, and I felt extremely nauseated.  I was working in the ER that night and Athens was in Maturnity.  When I didn’t think the night could get worse it started to rain.  When it rains in Africa it pours.  The ground becomes rivers which then turn into lakes.  There is lots of thunder and lightening.  The storm is great when you are nice and warm inside, but if you are trying to make a run to the bathroom it is not good.

So there I was stuck in the ER building the furthest building from the bathrooms, debating if I should make a run to the bathrooms or not.  And I use the term bathroom liberally.  The bathrooms here consist of a tiny outhouse looking building with a hole in the ground as the toilet. There is a square ceramic base that you stand on as you squat over the hole.  Most the time there is no TP in the bathrooms so you have to bring your own from home.  It was raining so hard that I didn’t want to leave the building, so I ended up throwing up outside.  After that I told the other nurses that I wasn’t feeling well and went into the nurses room and curled up on the desk.  I tried to sleep but the pain in my stomach was unbearable.  I have never had such intense pain before.  I felt like someone was stabbing me repeatedly in the stomach.  And at the same time I felt like I was on the verge of throwing up. I decided to brave the storm and made a run for the bathroom.  I hoped that I just had some GI issues and by using the bathroom I would soon feel better.  Sadly that was not the case.  The bathroom trip was completely unsucessfull.  By the time I made a run back for the ER I was completely wet, and feeling like a drowned rat.  I curled up back on the table, soaking wet and completely miserable.  I wanted to go home back to Bendale, but I couldn’t because of the heavy rain.  I was stuck in the ER, lying on a tiny desk with the worst stomach pain/nausea of my life. 

I braved the storm again sometime later, with the same unsuccessful results.  This all took place between 12 and 5 am.  By 5 am I knew I had to do something.  I couldn’t stand another second of this intense pain.  By this time the storm had calmed down and it wasn’t raining as hard.  I ran over to the maternity to tell Athens that I was going to go talk to Olwen (the Dr who runs the hospital) and see what he says about my situation.  On the way over to Olwens I threw up twice on the ground.  So now I was wet, in pain, nauseated, and had vomit splatter on my feet.  I was a complete mess, and looked like one too.  After waking Olwen up and talking to him he told me to lay down in the dental office tell the lab opened so that I could take a malaria test.  He also had Athens give me some IM Phenagrin for the pain (which did not help at all).

When I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any worse it did.  There I was lying on a extra bed in the dental room (I have no idea why there needs to be a bed in the dental room) thinking that I was going to get some sleep, when all a sudden I felt something drop on the bed besides me.  I sit up and look down by my feet and see something black, and it starts to move towards me.  I jump off the bed, and this things starts to crawl sideways across the bed, then it jumps in the air and fly’s across the room!  I turn on my head lamp and start searching the room.  That when I see this bat lying on the sink.  I am not a fan of bats, and even less of a fan of bats in the same room with me.  I notice that there is a hole in the ceiling above the bed and believe that’s where the bat got in.  After that bat experience there was no way I was going to get any sleep!  I wasn’t about to have more bats dropping out of the hole onto my bed again.  Sleep was out of the question anyways because the stomach pain had not subsided.  I ended up switching from pacing back in forth like a caged animal to sitting in the dental chair. 

When the lab finally opened I went and got a finger prick, and did a stool sample. For stool samples here they usually have people poop on a mango leaf.  I lucked out, and they gave me a medicine cup to use for my sample.  Stool samples or messy business.  Stool samples + diarrhea + tiny medicine cup = very messy business!  That was not a fun experience, but I was just thankful for the medicine cup.  I don’t know what I would have done if they had handed me a mango leaf!

Bronwin came and got us, and drove us back to the Roberts.  After a quick cold shower I got in bed and slept tell about 2:30 pm.  By the time I woke up my stomach pain was gone and I was feeling a little better, just really tired.  But then I was informed by the others that my test results had come back positive for Malaria.  Thankfully I had my Malarone to take as treatment.  I am resisting taking the Quinine for treatment, saving it for a “last resort”.  For about the next 2 days I slept, only getting up to use the bathroom and eat.  I was so tired and worn out.  I felt like I could sleep for days.  Malaria effects people different ways, and not the same way each time.  I knew when I came out here that I would probably get it, I just didn’t think it would be so soon.