I asked Linnea to look up the symptoms of malaria on wikipedia. I was under the covers, space heater on full blast, three layers of clothes on. I felt like I was freezing and I was shaking and shivering like I was withdrawing. (Jay, remember the cook at the Waffle house when you ran your ironman?)
I had felt fine when I woke up, ate a normal breakfast and we headed to get some work done. A couple hours later, it felt like a knife jabbed me in the stomach. My bowels started to churn and sing. My intestines imitated a pride of lions fighting for the kill. By the time we got home, I was done. I got in bed, joints and muscles aching, afraid if I took ibuprofen, I would just puke it back up.
Then the shakes, and the shivers, and the sweats. I hurt so bad, I actually had tears in my eyes. I was feeling so sorry for myself. Morning finally came, and I stayed in bed all day, except for the almost hourly emergency sprints to the bathroom. I have had some bad diarrhea on this trip, but this has been the worst.
The day dragged by, I took handfuls of pepto so I could keep the ibuprofen down. My back hurt and my head pounded…I thought I was dying. I wished it were malaria. (I actually did not get the high malaria fever, and though the rest of these symptoms are consistent with malaria, I should expect another round of the shakes today or tomorrow, according to wikipedia).
I took two immodiums and two azithromycins. Some more pepto. Some more painkillers. I was up 6 times that night for trips to the toilet (no accidents, uh, praise God!).
I laid in bed until almost 10am. We had planned on going to a coffee shop and working on the book. I took some more of all the meds and off we went.
I stared at my computer. It had taken me an hour to type three paragraphs. I was afraid of coffee, but now had to make a choice- be unproductive all day, or drink some coffee and risk a shart? I got the coffee. A caffe americano grande. Three shots of espresso. Worked all day, accident free! (again I say rejoice!).
We saw ‘Diehard 4’. So worth it. My expectations going to see this of Bruce Willis getting mangled and doing some awesome unbelievable stuff were fulfilled.
It was fun to sit in the South African crowd, {the men here love short shorts, what we used to call “grapesmugglers”. The Boers, I guess. Three quarters of a man’s thigh is more show and tell than is probably necessary, and with these shorts, they wear boots and khaki vests! The best part is, the boers save on their kids shoes by making the kids walk everywhere barefoot! Toughens them up! My buddy Hank (a personal trainer at Boston Sports Club in Waltham, and a true guru, he wrote a fitness book titled: “Not Another Guru”, Hank is a big proponent of bare foot training. Hank had a huge influence on my training theories, and was a real mentor to me. Hank DeGroat, and his wife Emily, are the parents of a baby boy named Benjamin, so this is a shout out to them, check out his website at www.bigheadfitness.com) would love this, and if we ever have children in this area, of course I will save some money on shoes!} though I am pretty sure most of the patriotic stuff was lost on them, I think I was the only one humming along to Creedence Clearwater!
So I sit here fighting the battle in my stomach, and procrastinating actually writing what I sat down to write…
