Saturday, February 5, 2011

Sick Days

I was trying to determine whether or not I was going to write about my recent visit in the hospital. You see, my Mom is one of those that can't help but worry about everything. Seeing that I am in another country that has all sort of venomous animals, mosquito spread diseases and gastrointestinal track illnesses you can imagine that she is constantly worried about the state of my health. I had stayed on the side of no, to save her a few early grey hairs until my younger brother Duncan let it slip and she called me the other day.

So now that she knows, I can explain the reason for my recent 4 day stay at Hospital Cattan in David.

To start, a few weeks ago I had a full body reaction to something... still don't know, food, bugs, or plant. Anyway, I had a full body rash that started at night and lasted throughout the following day until I reached the clinic that conveniently opened at 3 in the afternoon. The doctor agreed that I had an allergic reaction and gave me enough medication to get the itchy red rash to go away. The following two mornings the rash returned in the morning, although to a lesser extent, only to go away by noon. At the end of the third day I had worked on the aqueduct for 5 hours and had a pretty normal rest of my day. Ate some food, nothing new, brushed my teeth and laid down to read a book and go to bed. While reading my book I slowly developed a headache and decided to stop reading and just try and sleep. I immediately got freezing cold. It was not cold out either, I put on a sweatshirt, pants, socks, and was under my covers. I was violently shaking and unable to raise my temperature, I even was having trouble just using the toilet. This was then followed by a complete reverse in temperature. I stripped all of my clothes and could not cool down. I was in and out of sleep all night and when the morning finally arrived I had no motivation to get up and my entire body was sore. I couldn't open my eyes for more than a minute and had no energy to get out of bed.

That morning I called Lordes our wonderful medical officer and she informed me that I might have Dengue and if I could get to David, a 5 hour bus, it would be best for me. I built up the guts and lived through the long bus ride with the help of a friend and made it to the Hosptital in David. On my arrival I had no fever but my lower back, head, and cheeks were still giving me pain. The doctor had no idea what had happened and decided to hospitalize me just to be safe. That night I had a recurrence of the chills followed by a high fever. The fever the second night was considerably worse than the first night and after the worst of it had broken the nurse measured my temp at 39C or 103F. I know that it had gotten higher than that because during the worst I was lying as spread out as I could on my bed pouring sweat. Definitely the worst I have ever felt in my life. During the second fit I also had one bout of vomiting and started to have diarrhea.

From then on the doctor referred me to an internal digestion specialist because one of my blood tests reported that my white blood cell count was 13,000 when a high normal level is 10,000. His determination was that I had an intestinal infection and my body was fighting very hard to try and fight that infection. Once this was the determination I had an IV of saline and antibiotics in me 24 hours a day. It turned out to be what was needed because the following two nights I didn't have a recurrence of the chills or fever. I still am not pooping well but my fever is under control. Also a final blood test showed that my white blood cell count had leveled off to 6,700.

In the end it turned out to be an infection... I guess. I was given three types of medication to take for varying amounts of time and told not to eat anything exiting and to keep resting. I am glad the whole thing is over. I am definitely thankful that I came to David the night I did and that Lordes was so caring and on top of it the entire time. All and all I guess it is just another day in the Peace Corps, but it is a day in the Peace Corps that I could go without.

No comments:

Post a Comment