Adventures in Hospitaland

I had these grand plans not to get sick again. I was going to exercise regularly, take probiotics, do after dinner yoga, and use sheer mental strength to fight any parasites that might come my way. But less than three weeks in, I have gotten malaria and enteric fever and landed myself in the hospital.

I haven't quite been in my right mind the past few days. Within the span of three hours, I went from feeling like "maybe I just overdid it a bit yesterday", to feeling weak, to having severe body pains, to severe fever, to frequent and sporadic vomiting. I had to be carried from my room to a taxi and then wheelchaired all around a hospital and then made to stay there for four days.

 It is seriously the closest I have felt to death through an illness.

The fever did it. I could barely stand by myself. I was trying to sing the pain away or moan it away like a tone-deaf dog. And I found myself lost in thoughts of Scottish highland streams when people were asking me questions. The fever was causing me to lose my faculties and motor control, so when the vomiting racked my body, I couldn't help but urinate on myself. While leaning out the taxi door. In front of the hospital. I didn't tell anybody. I was embarrassed. I find it funny that I at least had the mental capacity to feel embarrassed, if not to control my bladder.

The funny thing about the worst of the fever was that my mind would occasionally fall into lucidity.  For 30 minutes I would cry and sing and then my brain would suddenly become alert enough to think, "You are really sick. Find the phone. Call Sampson. Say you need help." And then I would start acting on this command and fall back into delirium. When Sampson gathered me up for the hospital, my mind cleared briefly, and like a champion remembered I had all my Ghana clinic cards in my first aid kit (important stuff, as they use the cards to locate your records). My memories of that time are odd. I remember seeing Justin's face through the taxi window before we drove away, but not how I got into the taxi, or what anyone said. I remember needing to vomit and seeing a bedpan on the floor, and the extreme amount of focus it took for me to make sure I made it to that bedpan. I remember people asking me questions, and in my mind I understood how to answer, but other curious statements would come out my mouth. I remember laying in the fetal position in the taxi with my head on Sampson's lap as we drove to the University hospital. I remember getting an injection and an IV and then I don't remember anything until my head hit the pillow of my bed in the women's ward. And then I remember thinking that pillow must be the cloud bed of a heavenly angel, it felt so wonderful and so welcome.

I remained half-conscious for a few days. I would get up and shower now and then with a green bar of soap. I would poke at my food (which almost always contained fish). I would vomit. I would sleep. I woke up lucid enough to check what was in my IV bag. Metronidazole. Quinine. I remember thinking, "Why in the world quinine?" There is supposed to be a resistance to Quinine in this part of the world. Additionally, I thought I remembered reading that is was the more problematic of the anti-malarials, causing a larger number side effects and complications. Then at some point my ears began to ring and sounded like they were full of cotton. And when someone spoke to me, I heard three voices talking at once. Then my eyes stopped focusing. And around my IV injection site, my arm started to swell like a shiny buttered loaf of rising bread. I poked it and prodded it absentmindedly even though it hurt. To my addled brain, it looked like the Pillsbury doughboy.

Sometimes I would get a strange nagging sensation and wake up to find students at the foot of my bed praying. A few girls brought me fruit and asked it it would be okay if they said a prayer over me. And though I'm not religious, I let them. I don't know if it was more for their sake or mine. Becasue although I was really sick, my mind never thought of turning back to religion or God or prayer, like many people in times of trouble find themselves doing. However, there was comfort in knowing someone was wishing me good health. And after the prayers I noticed this poor fragile woman, who couldn't be much older than me and who was in the bed at the end of the ward,  watching me. One day her skinny arm grabbed mine as I was going into the bathroom and she gave me her bananas, telling me I needed to eat more fruit to help the vomiting. Then the next day she gave me her bottled water and told me I shouldn't drink the sachet water that is so common in Ghana. She also tried to give me her toilet paper roll since I had none and hadn't been lucid enough to remember to bring money with me to buy any of these things (since the hospital doesn't provide soap or toilet paper). When all was said and done, she was in far worse shape than me and we could barely speak each others' languages, but she gave and helped nonetheless. I haven't met anyone like this woman in a long time. Selfless is the word that comes to mind. (When I was finally discharged from the hospital, I came back the next day with a bag of food and said to her in Fante, "God bless you. Please get better." I don't know what was wrong with her, but she was in such pain, the look on her face nearly made me cry.)

My arm wouldn't stop swelling. Slowly, I started to realize something wasn't right, and as I became more concerned, I became more adamant the nurses pay attention (which they weren't very good at). They finally realized, after the fourth time my IV quit dripping and the fourth time of painfully forcing it to work, that the IV needle had poked through my vein and was pumping into my tissue, hence the swelling. So they pulled it out and switched arms. But I didn't want the quinine anymore. I had the suspicion it was causing problems, an allergic reaction called cinchonism . Despite this, I got the full treatment and the kind words, "It'll be okay." But my eyes and ears got worse. So when the doctor came by on his one-time-a-day visit and noted I was having an allergic reaction, I scowled at the nurses (despite the fact they had a hand in saving my life).

Four days has felt like a strange eternity. It is my first day since wednesday night being able to get up and walk. I found the door to the women's ward and escaped outside for a bit. I feel like a baby toddling its way in the world. Im dizzy, my vision is blurred, my ears are ringing, but I found a patch of bouganvillea that I coudn't stop touching and a spot of sunshine to sit in. I feel like a baby penguin. Don't ask why. And I feel this strange calm. Right now everything looks nice, brand new, and just plain wondrous. What a curious planet we live on. What a nice place. I completely and totally own this moment right now, it is the only one that matters until the next one comes. Be here now.