full disclaimer: do not feel obliged to read the following blog entry. i am just putting it on here because it happened but now its over. and theres certainly lots of tmi below! it was definitely not a fun week but now i feel great. anddddd i even got to have a great weekend in mwanza! moral or the story: i was sick but am completely fine now.
felt fine most of the day sunday. had a great facetime with mom in the afternoon. talked about the cruise and decided it would be best to do it another time. pretty pumped! that means i get to come home earlier. home. sweet. sweet. home. as soon as i hung up with her i went in to help prepare dinner. it hit me out of the middle of nowhere but i was cutting the peppers and realized that i felt horrendous. so i left the rest of the cooking to nick and went to lay in bed. my whole body starting aching. it hurt to lie in bed. it hurt to do anything. and i had the chills. eventually, a little after 8, i got up with indigestion and quickly found myself vomitting out the back gate in the courtyard. after two good hurls, i was still far from feeling good. the indigestion and constant burping and frequent attempts to throw up continued for over 3 hours. i was only successful 3 more times but man my stomach was tore up! and i was completely wiped out. amber was so so nice. unbelievably so. she staying outside with me pretty much the whole time, praying for me and humming songs for me. at one point we had to move the party into the shower because it started raining pretty good. to try to put a little something back into my stomach and hopefully neutralize some of the acid, i ate half a banana and 3 shortbread cookies that i had brought home from the Serengeti. sleep that night was rough as the burping wouldn't leave me alone for too long.
amber texted mahumi monday morning and told him i was ill and would not be going to school that day. i definitely needed the day to rest. and thats pretty much what i tried to do all day. food still sounded pretty repulsive. in fact, i made them put up the dinner (spaghetti) because it smelled so awful to me last night. i tried to eat what i could. bananas are the easiest thing to get down and peanut butter actually sounds disgusting for once in my life. i thought i was doing better until dinner time came again. it was beans tonight and i managed to put a relatively good portion down the pipe. overall, i was still just really not feeling well. just very tired and sore. indigestion was still there and the stomach was not happy. also the intake of water was down, though i still suffered through. i was also pooping what was pretty much just a black/ dark green liquid.
tuesday morning, i woke up to get ready for school. i was exhausted and had head and ear aches. so when mahumi subtly offered another day of rest, i couldn’t deny it. he offered to take me to the hospital, but feeling like i was almost over it, i declined. by now, amber was also not feeling well. all along, i thought it was just food poisoning from our saturday adventure of eating out or maybe the apples we got. it was another relaxing day, i guess. i laid in bed and planned what all i want to do in victoria falls and cape town. i listened to les mis. and read a book. amber and i had a little spurt of productivity which involved organizing the kitchen area. and i also looked and found some recipes we want to try… if we can get nick on board. we must change up the meals some. mahumi stopped by the house on the way home from school, about 5:00. so very nice of him. so i thought i was feeling much better until again i went to help cut up some vegetables for dinner. i cut the peppers and immediately felt awful again. my arms, my wrists, my whole body hurt. i got in bed. and then i called mahumi. i asked him if he could take me to the hospital. to clear the mind, i wanted to get tested for malaria since i had had most of the symptoms and had been going up and down and up and down in regards to how i felt. well amber decided she would go to the doctor too and so we had a nice little adventure at about 6:45. and. what. an. adventure. if i didn't feel so terribly, i would have enjoyed it more. but anyways, we walk in and mahumi wanders around for a while to find someone. then we sit on these benches outside a door and wait for a few minutes. no concept of line + white privilege meant that we went in before the other guy that was already there. so we talked to the doctor, claire. she gave us a registration card with a number and took down our names, ages, and symptoms. she decided to check for malaria and also to check out urine. there were no basic tests- no blood pressure, no temperature. the three of us just sat at a desk together and talked. she commented on how young we were. and she told us to come visit her at her home. i say ‘okay’. and she said, ‘no not okay’. basically she was telling us we had too. anyways, we then went to the lab. the lab tech, if you can call him that, was sitting out on the front porch with jeans and a chelsea jersey on. he came in with us and did the quick little test for malaria, a finger prick, and then gave us these tiny little jars to collect urine in. they were maybe 1.5 or 2 inches tall and had, if i am being generous, a 1/2 inch opening to collect urine. well he showed us to the bathroom and discovered that there was no electricity working in there. then he got mahumi’s phone to show us the flashlight. so i took out my handy dandy nokia phone, turned on the flashlight, grabbed my tiny jar, and prayed for some success. interesting to say the least. inafurahisha. they tested that and told me the malaria was negative and the macro and micro for the urine was nil. so test wise, everything was okay. so we went back to claire and she basically asked us what we wanted to do/ what medicine we wanted. i ended up with 4 prescriptions. basically, a kind of cure all antibiotic that might get anything we have and also antimalarials just in case some of the tylenol or advil was masking it. so we went to the pharmacy and she gave us three of the four prescriptions for 2,300tsh. then we drove into somanda where we got the other prescription, the main antibiotic, for 6,000tsh. we came home and tried to eat some of the little bit of mchicha and rice that nick left for us before going to bed so we could take the assortment of medicine we got. so back to my symptoms, food is disgusting to me. as is water. because my stomach hurts. it is constantly bloated even though i have eaten very little food. but every time i do eat or drink water i have to burp for a while. it was rough to go to sleep but once i did (aka after i burped all i could and tried to ignore the constant stomach pains) i slept pretty well.
wednesday morning, i woke up pretty late. i heard mahumi say hodi and make his way into the house. i got up and got all my meds and ate some oatmeal. still stuffed and bloated and burping at the little bit of food that i put in me. body is not aching like it did last night. just mainly the stomach right now. still pretty nauseous, especially when i get a whiff of some food. i still get the urge to throw up occasionally but i try to keep it in. i don't want to lose the food or the medication i was able to get down. really hoping that by tonight i will be feeling better and especially by thursday night. there is no denying it, the sickness is definitely taking a toll on the emotions. we have a long month ahead of us in march and just need it to hurry up and pass. never have i wanted time to go by so quickly. never have i wanted to feel better so badly. it is just not comforting not to know what is wrong with you, not to have the comforts of mom and knowledgeable doctors, not to have access to plain food or easy access to any food for that matter. i will definitely have a renewed appreciation for health after this.
** above was written on the 26th…. mid sickness. I will now detail the next few days on 3/3- almost certainly with a much more positive outlook since I am feeling soooo much better now.
wednesday continued the up and down pattern of my illness. i thought i had been doing better but dinner was still tortuous. i asked nick to get me basically a ramen noodle packet from the corner supermarket so i forced some of that down. not fun. and still like a baby.. i basically burped myself to sleep. sitting up, laying down, rolling up, sitting up, …
Thursday held another adventure for us. It marked the first day that I thought i was actually feeling better. however, still far from well and amber still pretty bad. we had been keeping kim informed and with her help we got mr sana involved. he brought over a doctor, the medical doctor in charge at the somanda hospital. I actually wanted to go to the private doctor in bariadi/ simiyu but i guess if we were going to go back to the somanda hospital we had the best case scenario with Dr. Diana. dr. diana actually made a house call for us. her and sana came over and we talked to her about what was going on. she went to our bathroom and told us how we needed to clean it. anyways, she thought we warranted another visit to the hospital for some more testing. again, amber was doing pretty bad and i was feeling better but i tried not to talk about that too much in case i was just having an up before another down. well she decided that she wanted to test us for malaria (again) and typhoid. these are both blood tests. the malaria test they did the first time was the short test and gives pretty much immediate results. this time she wanted to do a long one. also, at kims suggestion, i asked her if we could get tested for amoebas. So, we went to the lab, where it was packed! it was so sad to see so many people in there. ambers second headmaster mr mayuganya came with us this time and he was sure to get us seen and tested very quickly. all along i was saying that if i wasn't feeling so shitty i would really be enjoying these visits to the hospital just to see how everything is done. and so since i was feeling better today i did enjoy it a little more. i just really appreciate how basic their supplies and methods are but they get the job done just the same. now, with that said, you can be darn sure that i was watching for every single needle to be pulled out of a package. aint nobody got time for that shit. but anyways, back to the basics… they needed to draw blood. so to constrict the blood, in america you would get a blue rectangular rubber strip. in tanzania, i got a plastic glove. job well done. in america to draw blood, they would put the little port in your arm (at your elbow) and then screw the test tube container on to collect blood. in tanzania, they look for the best vein (amber has good ones in her elbow so they did hers there but mine are tiny so they use the top of my hand) and then they just use a syringe. after they get the blood in the syringe, they stick the needle into the test tube and squeeze it in there. again, different but job well done. then, comes the amoeba test. i guess i should mention that it requires a stool sample. so, i heard the lab techs and mr mayuganya talking and laughing and i knew it was about the stool sample. so smiling, he told us that they were out of containers for the specimens and that mayuganya would have to go get a match box for us to put it in. then the male lab tech said welcome to tanzania! hahaha. so mayuganya left and returned a minute later with two matchboxes for us, each with two matches left in them - the pooper scoopers of course. the test for amoebas is a quick one. that is, if you are able to give them something to test. since i dont think i had pooped since monday, there was no way that i was going to be able to go on demand. so, thursday, i left without any results. we finally made it back to our house and it was the first time that i was hungry. actually pretty starving. i took that as great news! i had eaten 2 bananas for breakfast around 7 and by 2 i was wanting some food. so jonah came by and he offered to grab us some food. i wanted two chapati, craving them after not being at school all week, but he returned with one. amber was eating with me too and she also wanted more so she called felix and asked him to send a student to the house so we could send him to the market to get us some more food. now i know this sounds awful. i know. but amber said that the students love doing it. then, trying to make ourselves feel better we came up with a litany of reasons for why it was a good thing for him. he had to practice his english with us, and in the context of a transaction. he was on break so he wasn't missing any class (not that that would have really mattered). i was face timing mom when he returned so he got to talk to her and see the technology. and we even gave him a little thank you tip (not that that was necessary or expected). anyways, we got more food and it was great. amber was still doing poorly this afternoon so i called dr diana and she came back over to check on her. we had dinner, which was unfortunately another not fun experience. after dinenr, we decided, after much debate all afternoon of going tonight or in the morning, to go to the hospital for amber to get an iv drip of fluids. she was incredibly dehydrated. so after many more interesting experiences and some disgusting sheets that oscar and nick had to go home to change, amber and i spent the night in the hospital. we were in a room with one other person. i stayed up most all of the night. i was sitting in a chair reading a book. i would go out and walk around. i would check out the sky - it was absolutely beautiful that night. however, i was also burping ALL night long. it was pretty miserable. tonight was one of the times that it really hit me that we are living in a developing country. anyways, i finally climbed into bed with amber around 4 and slept until about 6.
So, thursday night and friday morning was spent plotting with the help of kim how we can get a ride to mwanza to see another doctor. that morning, i was also finally able to get a stool sample for the amoeba test. so i took that to the lab, and without any orders in sight, i convinced them to do the test for me and do it then. so i waited for the results and he came back to tell me they were negative. but he did tell me that a nurse had already picked up our test results from yesterday but he remembered that i had typhoid with a ratio of 1:160 where 1:80 is the borderline. so he said, i had it bad. it was a while more of waiting, of doctors coming in and out and questioning why we wanted to go to mwanza, before we finally were able to get out of there. leaving with two guys from the district education office, dr diana, and a car full of other people that we picked up and dropped of along the way, we headed to mwanza. the driver dropped us off at a doctor that kim had picked and just like that we were at a nice doctors office and alone. we were in awe of the nice facilities and the treatment we got. now, folks, its all relative but by tanzanian standards it was great. they redid all of our tests and confirmed that i did have typhoid. so medicine in hand and confidence that it was indeed the correct diagnosis we left. now, all day friday i had been feeling completely fine. so it was a little odd to just get diagnosed with something when i was just feeling fine for the first time in 5 days. i also hate that i had to be diagnosed with such a scary name - typhoid. HATE! i have looked up some of the symptoms and don't feel like i even had all of them and i promise it wasn't terrible. but i hate the name for it being so scary to the mother and all the family and friends at home. anyways, we called a taxi driver abel, and he took us to our hostel and then to kuleana pizzeria. we got a delicious pizza, maybe a questionable first real food for the digestive system, and it was great. it had spinach, tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil, and the ever elusive cheese! we also sat at a table with two other gentlemen and they were fun. we went back to the hostel and i caught up with mom, katie, and sam! it was so fun to be able to talk to them all at once. then i tried to get some sleep. after not sleeping the night before, i thought it would be a piece of cake. but i swear tanzania is the country of people who never sleep and staying in the city center of the 3rd largest city in tanzania didn’t have the same plan for me. the music was turned off about 4:30 but the talking and moving around was constant. either way, i was still grateful to still be feeling normal and lying in a bed.
saturday morning, i finally got up and got some breakfast. the highlights were the pineapple (so sweet!), hard boiled eggs, and potatoes from a meat soup. i stayed down there for a while, just enjoying the morning, reading my book, and listening to the funny hodgepodge of stuff that came on the tv. then, i came back upstairs and talked to mom for over an hour - in the middle of the night for her. and eventually i made it out on the streets. i just wanted to walk around mwanza and get a feel for the city. i made countless ‘friends’ along the way and bought a few tiny souvenirs. oh and i found garlic powder and mixed herbs!!! so so excited!! then i called abel and had him take me to the bus stand to buy a ticket to return to bariadi on sunday and then to hotel tilapia. im telling you…. hotel tilapia = paradise. it was ridiculous. i had to sit there for a while just to take it all in. it sat overlooking lake victoria, with 3 different places to eat, a bar, a swimming pool, and a refreshing breeze. i ordered vegetable pasta. it had broccoli!!! in it and cheese!!! on top. it was a pretty large plate and slowly but surely i conquered the whole thing! i got to use my phone for the first time in two months. using viber, i talked with my mom for over an hour. i still think i have only charged it 3 times since i have left. then i got to facetime a few people. first i talked to craig, kathy, and tanner. and then goober. it was so great to talk to all of them! it had been way too long! i was also able to get the video chat on google to work to talked to dad too. before i knew it, it was getting dark and over 4 hours had passed. such. a. good. day. unfortunately, sleep was just as rough saturday night. they were nice enough to turn the music off at 6:15 in the morning. oh well, nothing could have put a damper on my saturday.
sunday morning was just a repeat of saturday. breakfast and reading. then, abel came and picked me up and took me again to the bus stand. i was there nearly 45 minutes early and the bus left an hour ad 15 minutes left. yolito. while waiting, i bought a pineapple, a pear, and a handful of bananas to bring back with me. and i refused countless offers from everyone walking around wanting me to buy something from them. it really is customer service at its finest… if it wasn't so annoying. just sit there and people will come by the window and onto the bus with everything imaginable. the ride was uneventful and the bus was nicer than the one we took from dar. at one stop, i bought two ears of corn so that was exciting. i worked on one ear on the way home, pulling off one kernel at a time. the second, i just finished while typing this up. i straightened up my room when i got back to the house and took a well overdue shower. mom called verizon and got her phone to work so that she could call my tanzanian phone so we chatted on that for a little. pretty awesome. i sent a sms to mahumi telling him i was back in bariadi and ready to go to school tomorrow but he told me he thought that i needed another day of rest and he would pick me up Tuesday. welllll, okay. mahumi is such a gem. i am beyond thankful to have him as my headmaster. i couldn't ever stress that enough! nick and i had leftover spaghetti for dinner - with garlic powder and herbs!!!! then, i crawled in bed to read and call it a night… in my own bed for the first time in 3 restless nights!
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