Even Peace Corps Volunteers Get the Blues

2 posts within a week?!?! What is the special occassion? Lets start from the beginning.

Monday afternoon, after I gave a Geography exam, I started to feel not so hot to trot. I was feeling somewhat achy, headache, and it kept getting worse. In the evening I was quite cold, and somewhat light-headed. Then came the night. In between frequent trips to the choo with diarrhea I was suffering from chills, fever, and all the aforementioned symptoms. It was a pretty rough night, which included some pretty rough dreams...nothing horrible and scary, just annoying and persistent and boring. The kind of dreams that make you more tired when you are done.

So morning finally dawned and I had decided that school was out of the question, at least for the morning, and I would go visit the local doctor. But before I visited him I told a fellow teacher the situation...just as my fever broke, so I was drenched with perspiration. He looked somewhat alarmed.

So I visited the doctor, he took a blood sample, and luckily I had saved a stool sample (you never know when those things can come in handy). He checked them under the microscope and said he found malaria in the blood sample and amoebas in the stool sample. Yes!! I've hit the jackpot!

Peace Corps was called and a vehicle came to pick me up.

So anyways, I got to Nairobi, PC checked me out and sent me to Nairobi Hospital. They put me on a 'drip' to fill me with fluids because apparently I was pretty dehydrated. Eventually they ruled out malaria and blamed it on something else that causes really high fever and lots of diarrhea. Official diagnosis: gastroenteritis. Not as exotic as malaria, but I'll take it.

So I spent two nights at the hospital, had women waiting on me at the push of a button (they had to unhook me from the 'drip' so I could use the toilet...every couple hours), enjoyed hospital food, and watched some television (Sleepless in Seattle and Big! They love Tom Hanks...though not as much as Chuck Norris).

So I've been released. Now Mom, don't worry about me. Like I always say 'No Woman, No Cry'. It happens to everyone.

Now its back to school after missing basically the entire week. Too much work. O-bla-di o-bla-da


PS:

On my second day in the hospital my door was open and this elderly British woman saunters up and asks me "Anything off the trolley, dear?" True. This may not be amusing to some of you, but I had to chuckle.