Sick and Tired

A few weeks ago I came down with a fever.  I wasn’t too worried; I get fevers here all the time.  The fever continued, the worst was at night when I had to try to sleep under the tap-dancing pigeons and tail-thumping rats.  They have lately had quite a lot of talent at keeping me up at night.  One night I was so chilled that I decided I should check my temperature.  As I shook the thermometer (we use the old-fashioned mercury kind down here) I crashed it into my cell phone which I was using for light.  The thing shattered broken glass and bits of mercury all over my face.  That was a pretty low moment for the past few years.  I was too sick to change the sheets, especially in the dark, so I rolled over to the other side of the bed and prayed that that stuff about mercury poisoning was all just hype. 

On a Sunday morning I woke up feeling very faint.  I knew I was going to pass out so I had to decide if I’d rather sit or lay down and pass out, still alone and still without anything to help me to feel better, or if I’d rather try to get myself some sugar or something.  I decided to try.  I ate a bite of leftover pasta and realized I couldn’t eat another one. Then I shoved some peanut butter in my mouth and, while drinking water, decided to try to get to the shower, and even sit in it if I had to, to try to cool off.  On my way to the shower I passed out and fell.  When I came to I heard the men outside my house screaming as usual and realized I was lying in the water from my bottle.  It was their screaming and that water that sort of pulled me out of the fainting.  Before I was fully conscious I ran my tongue over my teeth and thought that something felt a little off.  I wondered, briefly, if I’d broken my teeth in the fall, but decided that I hadn’t-my mouth was still full of peanut butter anyways, so what could I really tell.  When I became fully conscious I realized that I had, in fact, broken 3 teeth.  I looked at Lina as I slowly stood up.  She didn’t seem too worried.  Then I looked at myself briefly in the mirror.  It was not a pretty site.  I got immediately in the shower.

I called to my neighbor, who wasn’t home, then called the PC doctor who told me to come down to the capital as soon as possible and go directly to the hotel they have us stay in when we’re sick.  I called another neighbor, who came slowly down the street, to help me.  She helped me to get a ride with a neighbor all the way to Santiago, and even came with.  Before that I had to pack and try to get the house into some sort of shape for my departure.  I filled the cat’s food bowl to the top, as well as the water bowl, and sent Lina off to the house of the woman who watches her.  I had many visitors in those moments, even people who had never been inside my house before.  They all came over to look at my teeth and feel the bump on my head.  (I later figured out that I must have hit my water bottle into the sink, causing the sink to turn over, and then fallen back to hit my head on the bathroom wall.  I didn’t cut my lips or my tongue which is how I figured that I’d fallen with the water bottle in my mouth.) 

I rode to Santiago in a leather-interior jeep, with air conditioning, which was exactly what I needed.  I’d put my foot down about getting a ride just to Isabela (which would have mean that I needed to get myself on 2 buses alone) or about taking a motorcycle anywhere.  I’m so glad I did.  My neighbor and the man who drove me to Santiago got me on the bus to the capital, from where I took a taxi to the hotel.  I was glad to see some other PCVs in the hotel who were all very supportive, and all of them avoided the temptation to laugh at my yokel mouth. 

The next morning I went to the PC doctor who sent me to get blood work done and then to go to the dentist.  When they drew the blood at the lab I got very light-headed again, put this time I didn’t pass out because, as you might imagine, labs are well-equipped to deal with light-headedness.  They put me on a bed with my legs up above my head and I laid there for a while, the lab tech coming in every once in a while to ask if I was ready to move.  I wasn’t.  She finally asked if I should go to the ER, which seemed a little dramatic to me, so I told her to call the PC doctor.  She came back to tell me that the PC doctor said someone would come from PC to pick me up soon.  Then she came back to say that actually, I’d be going to the ER.  I told myself that if I could get up in that moment, I could probably avoid going to the ER, which did seem a little excessive.  But, I really couldn’t do it.  So, I let them put me in a wheel chair and wheel me down the street to the hospital.  It was hot and people on the street stared at me, but I tried not to think about it. 

When I got there I met what seemed to be hundreds of doctors, none of whom introduced themselves to me, although I was later expected to know whom they all were.  I was so out of it and everyone asked me the same questions, but I tried to answer them all.  A nurse came in and put in an IV needle which, and you must believe me when I tell you that I don’t ordinarily complain about such things this way, was the most uncomfortable, painful feeling.  It felt like she was cutting my hand with a knife, and it didn’t feel much better when the IV entered my arm.  This continued over the next few days that I stayed in the hospital.  Every time the IV ran out, blood would drip into the needle and when they reattached a new IV the blood would reenter, quite painfully, with air bubbles which were also quite unpleasant.  The antibiotics going in weren’t a treat either. 

They finally got me up to a room, but along the way I was put through a few exams, again, no one ever telling me what was going on.  When I got to the room, a very nice doctor explained to me that I’d have to wash my hair because they were going to do an exam of my brain the next day and I needed to have very clean hair.  When I realized that there was no hot water in my room, I asked the nurse if she could get someone to fix it.  She first told me I was doing it wrong.  Then she admitted that it needed to be fixed.  When she found out it would be a while before someone could come to fix it, she suggested that I take a cold shower because of my high fever.  I told her I was cold so I couldn’t take a cold shower, and she told me that was ridiculous.  I’d been working with the faucets for a while and was beginning to notice the lack of IV fluid entering my body so I simply told her I would not be taking a cold shower.  (I was incredibly proud of myself for standing up to her like that.)  Unfortunately this was only the beginning of the incompetence that I would get to see at the hospital among the nursing staff.  I have about 10 other stories, but I bet you’ve heard of similar stories and can imagine pretty well what could have gone wrong: everything.

After my brain exam, and a few nights of getting no sleep, I was finally able to fall asleep.  I looked like crap, and I was sweating profusely.  I was woken up at some point in the afternoon to the PC doctor and my mom walking into the room!  She’d come down as a complete surprise to me, and I was just thrilled to see her, but first I was completely out of it and almost thought I was dreaming.  I can’t imagine what she thought when she looked at me in that state… So we spent the next few days in the hospital talking a ton.  She would always encourage me to eat my soft foods, and I would try to explain how not-hungry I was.  She was an advocate for me to the doctors and nurses, while I interpreted, and she went to get me chocolate and other treats which also helped immensely.  I told someone just the other day, when you’re sick, there’s no one you’d rather see than your mom. 

They took the IV out on a Friday and I was so happy I almost cried.  It had been some of the worst pain I’d ever felt, including all of my aches and pains when I climbed Pico Duarte a few months ago and anything else I can think of, honestly ( besides one ear infection I had in high school which was very bad). 

On Saturday I got cleared to leave the hospital, although they never did diagnose me with anything.  My mom and I went to the hotel and stayed there until Wednesday.  On that Monday I went with her to the dentist and got my teeth fixed, and according to people who have seen them, they look completely natural, although I can obviously tell a difference.  On Tuesday I got some blood work done, a throat culture (my throat had been/still is) covered with white plaque which never responded to antibiotics, and I got my ears cleaned out.   I was starting to feel much better, and now I completely do.  So as I said, Wednesday we came up to my site, with diet coke and snacks in our bags.  We got here quite tired, but came back to a home full of over a weeks’ worth of dust.  I did my best to clean it up for my visitor, who I bet didn’t even care that it was messy.  I had many visitors from my town, coming over to see if I was better and to check out my new teeth.  I wasn’t completely better, but eventually the throat pain went away.  I spent then, 2 full days with my mom in my site, dealing with the heat (we were without power, and so were without a fan) for those 2 days, but she was a great sport.  She got a chance to see my site a bit and everyone remarked at how young she is.  They still are asking me if she’s my sister.  No one, despite the fact that they all have their children quite young, can believe that she is old enough to have a daughter my age.  Maybe it’s also that I look so old. 

I took her to Santiago to get a flight back to the US on Saturday.  I’ll see her again soon, with my 2 younger siblings and my dad in a few weeks, after a trip to visit another PCV in St. Kitts this week.  It’s going to be a very busy summer!