I got malaria

So internet has been out in Rwinkwavu. Sattelite went out of orbit. So with that, has all internet communcition. We have to drive into Kigali if we want an internet connection now. A huge two hour ride pain. So what has happened is that I have just stopped writing, and then in the interim, over this past month, I also stopped taking my malaria meds, only to have my swaggert stubbornness come and bite me in the ass, because I got malaria. I’ve been suffering from it all week. I am just coming into the light again. Of being able to laugh, and walk and eat normally again. A lot of people here get malaria, so it’s no big deal where I am. The poor die from it because they live far away from a health center and they don’t know what signs are what and when they need to get to a hospital or health center for. I on the other hand, just noticed myself getting more and more lethargic. Having less and less energy as the days went boy. Drinking more and more coffee throughout the day thinking it was going to pep me up. Going home to make it. Amping up my coffee consumption to night time too, because I was just so tired. Then sleeping more and more. 9 full hours of sleep and I would still wake up feeling fatigued. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Then I thought maybe I’m anemic. Maybe I have low iron levels. The food here isn’t always that well varied but I put the thought aside. And then this weekend, after a weekend away with Dr. Sara, and a couple of other PIH staff at this resort hotel on a lake on the other side of the country I just wasn’t feeling well rested. I forced myself up. I jogged. But I was incredibly sleepy after. Not revived. I didn’t talk about it. I talked instead about this bothersome pill esophagitis I got from swallowing my doxycycline without water over a period of a few months and it has what feels like forever burned a hole in my throat. Of course only after I do this do I read the bottle, drink with a full glass of water. And I hear of other accounts of people here who swallowed their doxy at night and went to bed and had this painful esophagitis following. Well then comes Monday, everyone feels all refreshed I said I did too, but inside I didn’t. Inside I wanted to say, “You know, it was nice to get away, but I still feel tired.” And then Monday I had diarrhea, and in a country where I haven’t had really any GI issues…I knew diarrhea was a sign of something. With my fatigue. And I went to the lab and tested myself for malaria. Pricked my own skin, put it on a glass slide. Gave it to the lab tech and she squeezed the purple stain on it. She told me it had to set for 20 minutes so I came back in 20 minutes. She wipes rinses it off w/ water, wipes it dry on the edges, waits for the purple stained part to dry more and then she puts it under the microscope. Malaria + she says. Just 1+ not the 4+ we sometimes see. But it’s there. I ask to see it, and she tries to show me how it is like the text book examples, there are lots of text book examples so I ask her to show me another, she looks for another. Shows me what is supposedly a red blood cell and this little tale like thing inside is the p.falciparum. I say let me give another sample. I wasn’t convinced. I prick myself again. Harder this time. To get a better sample. I hate pricking myself. Don’t know how diabetics do it. But I do, and get a larger blood sample onto the slide. I wait another 30 minutes. Come back. She rinses off the purple stain off the slide. Dries the edges. Waits for the middle to dry by air. Places it under the microscope. And then finds one. A p. falciparum. She gets me the laminated example of pfalciparum trophozoites and shows me how mine matches. She draws a picture for me of the field and where the malaria is. I look. Look for the red blood cell and then match up her picture to the field I am looking at in the microscope, there it is. It looks like one of the samples on the laminated card. P.falciparum there he is. No wonder I have been so fatigued. Feeling so bad lately. Not telling anyone really, but just feeling very fatigued. So the next day, Tuesday, I just conked out. I really felt awful. Like the worst flu ever. My body ached. Muscles ached. Spine ached. Head ached. And for the next two days I was just sick as sick can be. Threw up, nausea. And now, third day on anti-malarial meds and I am up, appetite returned, not as much pain, almost 0 and I can do other things, read, write. Think. So I guess I had to learn the hard way as it seems I always have to: malaria prophylaxis, yes, you have to take it if you don’t want to get malaria here.