Malaria is messy

I believe in the ability to jinx myself; 100%, sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, completely, utterly, totally, absolutely. And I jinxed myself. Who foolishly and smugly bragged that after my first successful journey in Africa, I walked away still immune to malaria? Me. Who got knocked flat on her smug little ass less than what? two weeks after posting that ridiculous, over-inflated claim? Oh yeah folks, that would be me. So thank you universe, for putting me in my place and showing me who is boss. You win, yet again. I got malaria.

It started so simply. A few days of increasing lower back pain. At first it was annoying and easy enough to dismiss. On the Tuesday, it started to catch my breath a bit as the pain would come in sharper waves before it faded. A co-worker and I chatted about it, thinking maybe a kidney infection as there were no other symptoms and the pain had been consistent over the past couple of days. He was going to find me some incredibly effective, ultimately disgusting local herbs that work wonders on curing kidney illnesses. I was popping Tylenol. By Wednesday, the “episodes” had me bent in half, clutching my lower back with one hand and the nearest stable surface with the other while I gasped for breath and yelped with the pain that it caused to take a deep breath. I looked like an 85 year old woman. Comical. Pathetic. I have the day off tomorrow, I’ll sort something out then.

Thursday, day off, arrived for a morning dive. Weeds, I mean herbs, HERBS were presented, smelling horridly effective and I said I would make them into tea after my dive.

*** tangent topic*** broke my fin strap just before rolling off the boat for the dive, did the whole thing with one fin… COMPLETE SPAZZ! But a one-fin dive is still better than no dive at all!***

Okay, back on track. After the dive, I was pretty exhausted but had been feeling tired all week, chalked it up to the dive, and dismissed it, along with the going on day 4 stitch in my side kidney pain. A friend of mine had offered me a lift into town and I had things to do – let’s get a move on! Went to town to run a few errands (like pick up a care & love parcel from mom & dad that saved my life!!!) and met back up with my friend in the central market. I was simply standing there, talking to her, when my power went out. Someone flicked a switch, pulled the plug, dropped the curtain, something, but in an instant, I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t lift my arms and could barely hold my head up. I had to sit down. I dragged myself to sit on the curb by the car and couldn’t keep my eyes open as I dropped my head into my arms wrapped around my knees. What the hell was going on here? Two local kids came by asking for money, I offered to give one some if he could go get me a bottle of water, I could barely speak. My friend came back and we made our way home.

Sitting in the car, I felt a bit better. I leaned my head back and tried to talk but my tongue didn’t feel right, it was too big, the words were getting all mumbled up and it was taking forever to get my thoughts out. I sounded drunk or like I should have been wearing a special ed helmet. I was a bit of a mess. Again, just thought I was maybe exhausted from the week and the heat and the dive and simply needed a nap. And in the back of my mind, I was thinking that maybe I really did have a kidney infection and I needed to sort this out.

As luck would have it, I had been house-sitting again at a house that is a two minute walk from my dive shop. I dragged myself into the house, flopped into bed, then had the unusual sense to check my temperature before I lost complete conscious thought. 38.8C. Texted Nicola at work to see what normal was, 36.4 – 37.4C. Oh. Fever. But I’ll figure it out later. I MUST sleep. Out.

Nicola came by after work, I thought I had been asleep for maybe half an hour, but apparently I didn’t move for several. Giggled at the mess of my current state of appearance, pillow wrinkled face and wicked wild hair, and assured her I was fine. She didn’t believe me. Janice, look at you, you have malaria. Oh don’t be ridiculous. Took my temperature again. 39.2C. Shit. That’s not good. Aching everywhere, was struggling to move, but again, just thought it was because I had been sleeping funny and diving with one fin earlier. Nicola had a horrendous bout of malaria a few months ago and she was serious… I had malaria. Nope. Impossible.

Her boyfriend Hennie arrived shortly after. South African sweetheart who really and truly can do absolutely anything you would ever possibly need to survive anywhere under any circumstances EVER. He took one look at me, we check-listed the symptoms, yup, malaria. Oh my gosh you guys! I feel like hell but I don’t have malaria! Back and forth we lob the arguments but ultimately, it was too late to go get tested so there was nothing to do but get through the night and see how things look in the morning. I’ll be fine, I just need sleep. Wow. Sheesh! I’m FINE!

The full body pain took my breath away, the fever stuck, and I drifted in & out until the sun came up. I took Tylenol to try to break the fever and deal with the pain but it barely touched either and I could feel the intensity of each one creeping its way back up as the pills faded from my system. It was fascinating. I couldn’t roll over, I couldn’t lift my head, my kidney pain now felt like a hatchet in my side, I just couldn’t control what was happening to me. Nicola checked in again in the morning and arranged for a friend of ours to take me to get a malaria test. (If you can’t tell by now, she truly is my guardian angel!) I HAD to have a shower but every moment was in slow motion, focused and deliberate, every movement sent varying coloured flashes of pain to my head that I couldn’t clear. It was all so foreign to me. I just want to get stuff done.

First stop at a local clinic, no tests, next place, finger prick test. Local clinic means small concrete building on the side of a main road with moms and sick babies sitting on every available bit of space and random puddles of who knows what here and there that I just couldn’t think about. I didn’t register the condition of any of them or the clinics, I was blind with my pain by this point. Test… negative. See! Told you guys! Umm… Janice, did you take any meds this morning? Of course I did! Yeah, pain / fever meds apparently block malaria tests. *sigh* Whatever. It’s a kidney infection. Please take me home. I need to go to bed. Dropped into bed, moaning and whimpering like a pathetic and helpless wimp, still insisting I didn’t have malaria. Passed out. Apparently for hours again. Somewhere in my haze, checked temperature again, still up at 39C, took more Tylenol with monumental effort, faded. Awoke half hour later to the piercing ring of my mobile, we’re coming to get you again, this time we’re going to the hospital. I mumbled some kind of consent, was piled back in a car and off we went. Somewhere closer to town, when I began to focus my eyes, I shared the obvious, I had just taken painkillers before they came to get me because I didn’t know they were coming to get me. Well, let’s try anyway.

Local icky hospital. Finger prick test. Negative. Ratted me out for taking the pills, gave me a packet of malaria meds and told me to take them if fever didn’t break. Fine, fine, whatever, bed please. Please. So much pain. Please. We went home, told Nicola, stuck to my kidney infection story, she brought me some industrial strength amoxicillin we had at the dive shop, I agreed to start them the next day. Everyone insisted it was malaria. It was so obvious it was malaria. I was refusing to believe it was malaria. Nicola was going to kill me. But she was still my guardian angel taking ridiculously good care of me.

I shivered and sweated and sobbed through another fever driven, pain-filled night then started the amoxicillin and ibuprofen, instead of Tylenol the next day. Minor improvement but fever spiked at 39.7C and somewhere in the back of my stubborn mule brain, I had to concede. My fingernails hurt, my teeth hurt, my eyeballs hurt, my HAIR hurt, (I kid you not!) and the headaches were just becoming unbearable. I was a mess. I had to move out of the house I was sitting for and into Nicola’s house so packed up my stuff in bits and pieces, was moved into her place at the end of the day and was done. Completely done. We passed by work on the way to her house and the manager and owner were there. I was given a proper and complete bollocking, told I was being absolutely reckless with my life, that the finger prick tests were useless, that all of them who have lived here for years with far too much malaria experience knew exactly what they were looking at when they saw me, and that death was my next option. Seriously. I felt like a child being scolded by the principal, and then I got a bit scared. Heads were shaking as “cerebral malaria” was thrown in as part of the telling off. Gulp. People die from malaria here all the time, even after they take the meds. I didn’t want the drama.

Woke up the next morning after my third miserable night and whimpered my defeat… I’m ready to take the malaria medicine now. Nicola made me so very comfortable in her home but I think she was ready to slap me. Poor girl.

I was continuing with the regular doses of amoxicillin and ibuprofen and I swear, once the first dose of the malaria meds kicked in, the clouds lifted. I could see clearly, without the blurs and flashes of colour and piercing pain, I started to get hungry, the first time in four days, I could stand up straight, I could stay awake for more than 30 minutes and have a proper conversation, and I could walk without feeling like the world was going to slide out from under me. After the first dose. Ummm… okay, yeah, I should have done this four days ago. But I was convinced it wasn’t malaria. I wasn’t vomiting, I was tolerating the pain (barely, but I’m a baby!), I felt horrible but not quite on death’s door, and most importantly - I’m supposed to be immune to malaria damnit! Apparently not.

Quick recovery once I stopped being so bloody stubborn but still struggling with being exhausted all of the time. Not handling that well at all as I have so many things I want and need to do before I leave. That, and I’m not so good at sitting still at the best of times anyway. All in all though, I was a very lucky girl. Nicola and Hennie were regular little nurse maids, sweet friends got me to the hospital without having to endure the truly agonizing experience of a chappa (local mini bus) ride, I got loads of love and sympathy messages, and I responded really well to the meds, bouncing back super quickly. A lucky girl indeed! How people get through it without medication or the comforts that I did is beyond me, and I’m sure I had a very mild case of it.

As I’m coming up on the miserable malaria bits being a distant memory and the after effects simply being annoying, I can see very clearly how this came to be. Yes, yes there was some little mosquito biatch who was after my blood, but more than that, I’ve had a very emotional month and obviously didn’t control my stress as well as I should have. With a very special person leaving my life and then the process of leaving a job and a place that I’ve come to love very much, I know I became overwhelmed. Still smiley and put together on the outside, but it’s that inside stuff that messes things up. So lesson learned, just get over it, and while I can’t claim to be immune to malaria, I will try to keep my stats down to just this once. It was a week of learning and I march on. Malaria is pretty miserable folks. Trust me.

Countdown is here. My last day of work will be Saturday the 19th, I will head down to the city of Maputo to try to collect my new passport on the 22nd, I fly out of Africa on the 24th, and will be on American soil on the 25th. A little sad that I won’t be able to make my visit to mom and dad in Canada but getting more and more excited everyday… mostly about dumb things like driving a car, nice comfy linen, ridiculous amounts of familiar food, and clean feet at any given time. It’s going to amazing. If anyone wants to come to visit Florida, just outside of Tampa, I’ll be the one running around like a loon, acting like a sugar-hyped tourist, and soaking up everything that we love to hate about Western living, from March 25 – April 14. Come and see me before I disappear into the African wild once again. Well, okay, maybe not the wild, but still Africa. 