So what’s a good 11-month mission
trip without being sick in the first month, right? The following is a tale of struggle,
heartache, coughing, and just a first-hand account of what it’s like to be sick
in a third-world country.
So on Tuesday, July 20, I woke up
to the feelings of achiness, a sore throat, some slight nausea, and a
headache. Seeing that I’m in a foreign
country and who knows what kind of strange illness I could have, I figured it
was a good idea to go to the doctor. So
I went to the doctor accompanied by Jake (who was also feeling achy and had a
fever and good ol’ diarrhea), Kyla (who had an armpit rash. Hot!), and Canoo
(who is Haitian and speaks Creole and can make sure we don’t die while being
stupid Americans). We left the house and
got a tap-tap (Haitian taxi, basically, it’s a pick-up truck that has long
benches in the bed of it and a metal cage roof thing over the bed. You can fit about 12 people in it. The locals love to squeeze as many people as
possible in one.) and traveled to the doctor.
We got off the tap-tap at the nearest stop, and walked about another
five minutes to the hospital. So we get
to the hospital and as luck would have it, there’s an organization of American
medical missionaries working at the hospital.
Sweet! No sketchy third-world
country healthcare! Also, since they
were missionaries, free visit and free drugs!
So we sat down, told Sandy (our doctor) our symptoms, and she dispensed
to us the proper drugs. I left with some
anti-biotics and a pounding headache. I
went back to the house, laid down on the bed with a pounding headache for
awhile, and later that evening was feeling better. Sweet! I’m all healed, right? Not quite . . .
So most of the next day, I was
feeling better. That evening, though, I started
feeling a little congested and develop a little cough. Not a big deal. However, the next morning (Thursday), my
congestion has gotten worse, my cough has gotten worse, and the achiness and
headache has returned. That night, I am
still feeling horrible and decide to check my temperature and see that I have a
101.7 fever. So I pop a couple Advil,
and a couple hours later, my fever has reduced to 99.2. Sweet!
Except the next morning, my congestion and achiness and headache all
still exist, my cough has gotten worse, and my fever has returned to
101.7. Again, in a foreign country,
crazy illnesses exist, probably a good idea to go back to the doctor. So this time I go to the doctor accompanied
by Kendra (who had had diarrhea), Jake (who had a few weird looking bug bites),
and Toto (who is Haitian and speaks Creole and can make sure we don’t die while
being stupid Americans). So again, we
leave the house, get a tap-tap (after waiting for about 10 minutes), take it to
the nearest stop, get off and walk to the hospital, and visit our favorite
American medical missionaries. This
time, after telling the doctor my symptoms, he says, “Well, we can give you
malaria medication.” Can someone please
remind me how my life got to the point where I can contract diseases like
malaria? Anyways, he proceeded to say
that in order to find out for sure that I had malaria, I would have to get a
blood test done, and the results take 3 days to come back. So rather than wait 3 days for that, it made
more sense just for me to go on the 3-day medication plan and get better. So we got our medication and left the
hospital. After a quick stop at the
market, we stood on the side of the street to wait for a tap-tap. And we waited, and waited, and waited, and
waited. Of course, all of this time of
standing out in the heat waiting for a tap-tap, be reminded that I continued to
have a 101.7 fever and possibly malaria.
So after about 20 minutes of waiting, we get on a tap-tap. The tap-tap goes about 2 seconds down the
road, and then stops. A passenger gets
off and starts shouting in Creole at the driver. Suddenly the tap-tap makes a u-turn in the
middle of the road, and we’re now facing the opposite direction of where we
need to be going. So much for that
tap-tap. We get off the tap-tap and then
decide that the best decision is to just walk.
It’s about a 20-minute walk, which really isn’t that bad. Unless, of course, you have a 101.7 fever, a
pounding headache, and possibly malaria.
In that situation, the 20-minute walk seems like a 20-hour walk. But God is faithful, and He finally got us
back to the house. I then proceeded to lie
down on the bed and sleep for a few hours.
By the next day, my fever had gone away, and I was mainly just left with
congestion and a bad cough, which I actually still have today. Also, on a less exciting note, the conclusion
has been reached that I didn’t actually have malaria. Other people on my team have had similar
symptoms as me so it seems like there’s just a virus that is going around. However, 10 years from now, after everyone
has forgotten about this blog, I’m so telling everyone that I had malaria
because that makes for a much more exciting story.
