I held that same attitude even when we were in the hospital waiting on the doctor to do a check up on me until about 20 feet in front of her office. I just kind of lost control of my limbs and my ears started ringing uncontrollably and I had no idea where I was at. I started to fall over and three tiny African nurses grabbed me and helped into the office and get onto the examination table (not after they led me straight into the doorway- have a nice bruise from that). They took some blood, started some tests on it, and then decided the best course of action for the present would be to give me two giant shots- one in each cheek. I always thought those shots would be the least painful because you know, there's not a ton there; But these felt like they pumped liquid fire into my unprepared buttocks. They let me go after that and I got to do a lot of work that day that I needed to get done.
Later that night I got a call from my Mission President (who was in Ghana for a conference) telling me I needed to pack a bag and check myself into the hospital. Got there and got settled in and then my doctor came up and explained I had some pretty serious Malaria. She explained that my concentration of it in my blood was way past the fatal line and she had no idea how I was not dead or collapsed dying so that kinda freaked me out a little. She continued to explain normal sick people sit at Malaria concentrations of 30k-40k, hospitalized cases are at like 45k-50k and most people lose control of their body at like 60k. And then she explained I was sitting around 68k. So I guess +1 for Ketron's theory that all diseases are just in the mind?
Anyway they got me hooked up to an IV and pumped with drugs and in air conditioned room (score). First day was awesome just slept and got to eat African hospital food. Then that night stuff started to get crazy again. Remember those political elections and then nothing happened? Yeah stuff started to happen. Started to hear gun shots and yelling at about 6 pm and that lasted a good 4 hours. The shots were fairly close and I could tell they weren't using little billy's 22, they had the big guns out. I attached a picture that some random person took but basically in the riot that was next to the hospital (numbers from members of the community) 8 dead and about 25 who were injured from gunshot wounds.
So in all of this most of the nurses left the hospital because they were scared that the military was going to come in and disturb them. With that my nurse started me on my next round of drugs told us "I'll be back in 5" and then I never saw her again. The homie janitor Francois kept all my drugs and drips and stuff in order until the next nurse started her shift a couple hours later. Needless to say I am fine now and one of the primary girls drew a picture of me to help me feel better but she chose to draw it "back when [I] had long hair and was handsome". Interesting week here but I hope you guys all have a great week.
