Lets just say..I’ve had a ROUGH WEEK! Last Monday I woke up feeling very achy and tired, and my entire neck felt like it had been bruised. My eyes also were itching and watering throughout the night. I took it easy that day, but when I woke up on Tuesday and my body and eyes did not feel any better, I decided to see the doctor. He felt my lymph nodes in my neck and told me that because my lymph nodes has become so swollen, they were interfering with the muscles in my neck. My lymph nodes had also made my neck sore and my ability to turn my head that much more difficult. He diagnosed my eye problem as conjunctivitis or “pink eye’ as we like to call it. The aches and pains I was describing he said could be the start of ANYTHING so he told me to come back if I started to feel bad again or if I had a fever.
The next two days I spent in bed feeling weak, achy, and just tired. I did not participate in ministry because just walking around seemed to hurt. On Friday, I woke up feeling much better and almost back to normal. I participated in ministry that day and even went out to one of the provinces with my team to assist with a medical team. I had noticed a rash all over my legs that day but assumed it was just bug bites or that maybe I had an allergic reaction to something I had come in contact with(found out later that this is another lovely symptom of dengue). The whole day I felt extremely tired but I just assumed it was because we had been going non stop since 5:30 in the morning. On Sunday when I woke up, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I walked out of church and just started to cry. Every part of my body hurt…..I felt nauseous, weak, tired, and just flat out AWFUL! I spent the next two days in bed doing absolutely NOTHING. It hurt to just lay in my bed. I’ve had strep throat, the flu, chicken, pox, etc. in the past……but this was TEN TIMES WORSE than any of those. They call dengue the “breakbone fever” or “bonecrusher disease” because that’s EXACTLY what it feels like. And I WISH I was being a little bit dramatic about this, but dengue makes your bones hurt!!! I sat in bed, stared at the ceiling, prayed and cried A LOT, and seriously decided that chewing shards of glass would feel better than having dengue fever (I’m kidding…kind of).
After two days of this, I went to see the doctor and blood tests confirmed that it was in fact dengue fever, but unfortunately there is no magic pill…you just have to treat the symptoms. I was sent home and told to drink as much water as I could possibly handle and to take tylenol. Today is Wednesday and I am finally back to normal..praise God!!!! These past 8 days have been the MOST frustrating thus far on my trip. I had REALLY been looking forward to coming back to Cambodia after my experience here in January. Instead of being out with my team doing ministry though, I have spent the majority of my time here in bed.
I write this not for you to feel sorry for me, but for you to understand that as AMAZING as this trip is, things just get VERY hard at times…emotionally, spiritually, and physically. We see children living with terrible diseases, young women selling their bodies to make a living, and struggle with understanding WHY these things happen. Physically, we are TIRED…..our bodies adjust to different living conditions every three to four weeks and this month, it just all caught up to me.
I would NOT trade this time with these people and seeing what God is doing in their lives for ANYTHING, but my team and I need prayer for strength….emotional, spiritual, and especially physical.
