So it’s official …… Africa has it out for me. Before I tell you how I spent the first two weeks of ministry in Uganda, let me remind you of my “adventures” in my first two African countries. In Tanzania, I just couldn’t seem to catch a break, and not-so-great things kept happening one right after another. For a reminder of everything, see prior blog titled “Tanzania’s Not So Warm Welcome.” My time in Tanzania consisted of two trips to the medical clinic. Then in Rwanda, I was diagnosed with multiple parasites “dancing” in my stomach, meaning yet another visit to a medical clinic, with this visit consisting of one needle to draw blood. Now, here in Uganda, I’ve seen the medical clinic more than I have seen the school where we’re doing ministry. Uganda bit me. Okay, not so much Uganda, but one (or many) of its local residents … the dang mosquito! Thanks to one overly friendly mosquito, I found myself with “lots of malaria.”
It all started with feeling exhausted and having a sore throat. I had been feeling really tired for days, but I hadn’t really thought anything of it. I just figured it was to be expected after being in the field for 6 months. I mean, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had a good night’s rest since being on the Race, so of course, it was just starting to catch up to me. As for the sore throat, I expected it was the result of being caught in the rain more than once the weekend before arriving to our contact’s home. After a few days of not feeling well, I mentioned it to my leader. I have no idea why I thought to bring it to her attention because it wasn’t like I was feeling horrible, just a little under the weather, that’s all. She instantly suggested that I go to the clinic just to be on the safe side.
We went to the medical clinic, which happens to be walking distance from our home. I explained my symptoms to a doctor, truly expecting that I had nothing but a cold or something, and she proceeded to have my tested for malaria. Bri, being the supportive team leader that she is, said she’d also get tested for malaria, just so I wasn’t in this all alone. 🙂 We both got our fingers pricked and then waited for the test results. Keep in mind that Bri felt totally fine, and I only felt tired and had a sore throat. While waiting, we joked about the idea that one of us or both of us having malaria and only because it seemed so impossible due to how we were feeling.
Out comes our two little pieces of yellow paper. The only difference between all the writing and numbers on our papers was that mine said “3 MPS” and Bri’s said “1 MPS.” The doctor starts talking to our contact’s wife and even says some stuff in English, but neither Bri nor I could make out what was going on. Then the doctor looks at us as says, “You (me) have lots of malaria, and you (Bri) have only a little.” Instead of being alarmed in this moment, we both found it funny. First of all, how does one have a lot or a little of malaria?? In the words of Bri’s mother, you either have it or you don’t. Come to find out, there are stages of malaria, depending on how long you’ve had it in your body. I figured a stage 3 wasn’t so bad, until I was informed that the highest stage is only a 5. Apparently, most people with a stage 3 are so sick and are hospitalized due to how bad they feel. The doctor wasn’t sure how I was walking around and feeling as well as I was, considering the fact. Of course, I knew it was because God was looking out for me.
Then all the fun began, and when I say fun, I am being 100% sarcastic. Since Bri only had 1 MPS (which we still have no idea what that stands for but we enjoy making things up for it), she only had take a series of pills for 3 days. Me, however, the solution was not so simple. My doctor then presented me with my two options for being healed. One, I could be admitted to the clinic to be on an IV drip for 24 hours, or two, I could have injections in my butt (yes, my butt!) for the next 5 days. Now I know that to many of you, the first option seems more preferable to the second but that’s only because you can’t see the clinic and the conditions of where I’d be “resting” for 24 hours. Let’s just say that as much as I HATE getting shots, I quickly chose the second option of having daily butt injections.
Thus began my journey of getting the malaria out of my body. Before going home that day, I had to begin the process of getting the shots. Oh the adventure that was. I had to get not one, but two!, shots this time, one in each cheek. Picture this: a dirty (I mean, filthy) room, me laying on a surface with my butt exposed, door wide open with a man laying in a bad right across the way, 3 loud laughing African women, and 1 mzungu (for you Americans, mzungu=white person). It seriously felt like a scene out of a SNL skit.
I spent the next few days in bed, only getting out to go to the doctor to get another injection. Between the shots and all the medications I was taking, instead of feeling better, I was gradually getting worse. The doctor then decided that my malaria was too severe for the injections to be effective, and there was no choice but to go the IV route. Knowing how much I didn’t want to stay in the clinic, the doctor agreed to set me up in my own bed at our house. To say that the arrangement made things complicated would be an understatement. There were complications one after another, but for sake of the length of this blog, I will spare you all those details. Let’s just say if I have to be put back on IV before leaving Uganda, I will NOT do it at home. Oh, and not to mention the fact that a side effect of the IV drips was temporary loss of hearing.
After two days stuck in bed with an IV in my arm, I then began another series of pills. These pills made me more uncomfortable and sick then the IV did, so I had another three days of being in bed. I had never been more excited to take some pills than those of my final dose. So then, one week later, to the day, after my initial diagnosis, I was finally out of bed and back in ministry. That week was definitely the longest week I’ve experienced on the Race, maybe ever in my life. We’re assuming that all the malaria is out of me. Surely it is! I’ve now been out and about for three days, and I feel like I’m healed. I’ll go back in for a check at some point, but at the least, I’ll get tested a few days before leaving Uganda.
There’s really no lesson or teaching point in this blog. I just wanted to share the details of my malaria experience with you, if anything for comic relief. 🙂 One thing I do know for sure is that God was definitely with me through all of it. I know it may not seem like it with everything that happened, but more than one Ugandan told me that most people with stage 3 malaria are hospitalized, feeling like they’re knocking on death’s door. I had plenty moments of discomfort and pain, but God definitely spared me. He also allowed me to get the rest my body much needed.
