Oh where to begin…the joys of being sick in Africa!
I wasn’t feeling the best when we arrived in Sumbawanga, but chalked it up to the 4 days of travel. Over the course of the first week here I started feeling worse and finally told my team.
One of my teammates hadn’t been feeling well either so we headed off to our first African clinic to get tested for malaria (I suppose this was the 12th). Some of the other teams had already tested positive so we figured it’s better safe than sorry. Two of Pastor Henry’s sons went with us and took us to a clinic in town. After a 45 minute walk to the clinic I paid 1,000 shillings (about .75 cents) to see the doctor and ran through my list of symptoms as to why I wanted to be tested for malaria. First concern…my patient card was a piece of computer paper with my name, age, and district on it. Second concern…I had to convince the dr. to test me. He finally writes on my piece of paper that I’m requesting to be tested for malaria and I go on back to the “laboratory”. It’s sketch, but they’re just going to do a finger prick and I watch them unwrap a new needle. Pay 2,000 shillings for the test and then wait outside for the results. We’re then summoned back to see the dr. who looks at our pieces of paper, says it’s negative, asks some more questions about why we’re here and then we leave. The lovely 45 minute walk back home doesn’t help with the exhaustion…
Pastor Henry knows that we’re sick and decides that he wants us to go to the hospital the next day (the 13th) and get tested again. My teammates break the news to me with “I’m sorry, but get up you’re going to the hospital to get tested again and your ride is outside.” haha~ awesome. I’m pretty sure that I would have refused if I had to walk into town. We get there and get an actual form this time. Again, go in to see the doctor- give her a list of my symptoms to which she writes a few down and then below it writes “Looks healthy, not pale.” and tells me to go get tested for malaria. When I walked out one of the church members that’s a nurse was there with another doctor. We were able to talk with them a little more and this doctor says that we should be tested for parasites and typhoid as well, so he writes that down and signs off on it and off we go to another laboratory. This place is actually pretty legit, looks and smells sterile. I trusted them a lot more than the first clinic. They draw blood and tell us it will be about 10 minutes. We get a tour of the place and then the helpful doctor goes to get our results. He happily tells us that they all came back negative…then asks, “So you feel better now?” Oh if only it was that easy…sadly no, just because he took my blood it did not make me feel better! So we go outside and wait for our ride home, and I crawl back into bed for the night.
~In between, I make it through church Sunday morning and then go home, back to bed and stay back from church that night. Make it into town for some errands on Monday, feel better Tuesday!, and then wake up halfway through the night Tuesday night feeling even worse. This leads to me staying in bed all of Wed., and then getting advice to treat my symptoms with over the counter meds and an antibiotic~
Thursday (the 18th) rolls around and Pastor Henry wants to take me to another clinic. I figure it can’t hurt because I need someone to recommend some medicine! We show up at the first clinic I went to (yea, the sketch place)…luckily they were so busy that Henry went to another one and came back to move us over to the other clinic. I finally found a doctor that I like! He took my blood pressure and all!!! I told him what was wrong and he acknowledged the symptoms I gave him and asked questions about how I felt. He said that he wanted to test me again for typhoid and would test for malaria and a uti as well. I sort of laughed and said ok thanks, I mean come on… I was just tested for these things less than a week ago! But again, no harm in playing along if I can get something to make me feel better. So again, have them draw blood…then they gave me a 35mm film container to go pee in… I laughed when he handed it to me. Seriously, my arm is still bleeding, but I’m supposed to pee in this little thing?! I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty hard to accomplish…but alas, I leave them with a vile of my blood and a film container of pee and they tell me it will take 2 hours for the results. (I question the other places giving me my results in 10 minutes after this place said it takes 2 hours.)
So Henry and Eva (his wife) have adopted all of us, and this day it was especially evident. Sarah had come with me and since we had 2 hours to waste they took us to get sodas, then dropped us off at the internet while they ran some errands and said they would come pick us up in a little bit. (This was after Eva waited in line at the first clinic for me while Henry took us to the market to pick out fabric for skirts…)
Henry comes back by to get us and as soon as we step outside of the internet café he grabs my hand and with a very concerned look tells me…”You have typhoid, but I have the medicine you need here and you’re going to be ok!” He had already gone back by the clinic, gotten my results, my medicine, the information for my medicine, and had called his brother to come pick us up. Sweet, I know what I have…seems like it would stop there, right?
Wrong…so they gave me the antibiotic to treat Thypoid, a painkiller, and medicine to treat malaria- yea, I may or may not have malaria as well. Apparently it didn’t show up in my blood, but they think it’s hiding in my liver…I don’t get it, but they seem to think I have it and some of my symptoms matched up with malaria and not typhoid so I’m being treated for both.
Sadly, things got much worse before they got better…which meant that the next morning when my body was reacting to all of the medicine in me Henry went back to the clinic to talk with the doctor and find out some more information on why I was so much worse after I started the meds. Instead of just getting answers, Henry got a doctor…and brought him back to the house =) Why not have a house visit from the doctor on call…
Moral of the story~ Having typhoid in the middle of nowhere, Africa sucks!
I’ve been out of ministry this month more than I’ve been in it.
I’ve slept more hours each day than I’ve been awake.
I’ve had to succumb to what my body can physically do,
