Have you ever woken up at 2 a.m. on your birthday to something biting your leg? No? hmmm, maybe I’m the only one? Let me set the scene for you.
Being in Cambodia you cant really avoid bugs even the really big ones so it is not uncommon for you to have a surprise visitor in the middle the night. I’ve been bite by ants, mosquito, and even spiders. I’m pretty sure everyone has. Every night we sleep on the floor on our sleeping pads me being the restless sleeper I am I probably wake up every hour during the night. I woke up around 2 a.m. and started shifting sleep positions. I lifted up one of my legs to stretch them out and as I was putting my leg back down I felt a sharp pain. I was kinda out of it since it was 2 a.m. so I thought maybe I pricked myself on something sharp. I quickly grabbed my phone to check out what happened and as I looked at my leg you could see a bite mark and it started to sting! I kinda just stared at it a while because I was in shock I never would have thought something would bite me, it was just something you heard about. Then the thoughts started flooding my brain. What if this is poisonous? Am I going to die? Do I have to get rushed to the hospital? (I’m dramatic) I finally got up and got help. We cleaned up the bite and The leaders also prayed over my leg for healing. I stayed up the rest on the night keeping an eye on it.
This was the worst sleep I’ve gotten since I’ve been here and I already had it in my head that this was gonna be the worst birthday because I’m running on little to none sleep and my leg was pounding and swelling. I fell asleep for about an hour and woke up to my leg still hurting but there was no swelling!? crazy right! The leaders did some research and I looked this up as well but we think I got bit by a centipede. This would make so much sense since centipedes disappear so easily because they are fast ( I was gonna say little buggers but the ones in Cambodia are huge!) and they venom irritates the skin, stays in the general location the bite was in, and the bite looked very similar to the examples they had.
That morning my team had breakfast for my birthday and I was feeling a bit rough and thought there was no way I could make it through the day. After breakfast, we went swimming and the day started getting better! After swimming, the girls and I went home and got all dressed up for the first time in a long time because you never really wear makeup on the race since your sweaty 24/7 and it was some much fun helping each other with makeup and borrowing each other’s clothes so we could look all cute.
We headed out to Green Mango where the food was delicious and I had burrito bowl. Let me tell you, your girl loves some Mexican food ( aka the closest thing you can get to Mexican in Cambodia) at the end of the day my teammates surprised me with an ice cream cake! It was the sweetest thing because I remember telling them how sad I was because ice cream cake was my favorite thing and I was sad I wasn’t going to get one this year for my birthday. They took the time to take a day that I thought was going to be so terrible and make it into one of the best days I’ve ever had. I am forever thankful that God put me on a team with these girls because they are truly my home away from home. I am so lucky because It’s been awhile since I’ve had such a close group of friends. I honestly feel like they truly love me and care for me. So if you girls are reading this you guys are the real MVPs! Thanks for all you have done to make my birthday a special one! 
