My support team...who made fun of me the whole time.

 The Hospital

I don’t like check-ups or needles, I’m very picky about my doctors, and hospitals are for really sick people...I really don’t want to go to the hospital, especially one where the doctors and I do not share the same first language.  But I’ve had a fever of over 100 degrees for three days...I keep breaking them and they keep coming back, they miss me too much to stay away.  Momma Kate and Zik insist that I go and with Kit by my side (my other sick roommate who also thinks she’s caught something from the kids we teach) we embark on what will turn into a grand adventure...

On the way I try to create realistic expectations, giving myself a crash course in culture shock 101...Luckily when we arrive I am in such a state of delusion from fever and not really eating for days (because this is one of those illness where eating exhausts you...the kind where your esophagus and windpipe stage an epic battle with each bite and after a few you’re too tired to finish) that the place doesn’t faze me.  All the waiting areas are open air, similar to a pavilion, with closed in rooms that have barred windows on either side of he open space with benches everywhere.  Everything’s concrete except for the benches which are wooden.  Dust is everywhere.   The particular doctor we are here to see, the one that works closely with CCS, is working in the pediatric unit today so we head there, not once stepping inside four walls as we go.  Colors flood my vision...kangas (a traditional garment that can be used as a skirt, a shirt, a baby carrier, a head wrap, a bag, a diaper....) of every color I could ever imagine are worn by the women plus their babies in this small open air waiting area.  We sit down on a cement step in the middle of the place.  Babies crawling, walking, playing, laughing, crying.  Some are sick, some are here to be weighed and measured...it is organized chaos.

We finally see the doctor after about an hour of waiting, in a little cement room that he shares with two other people with one barred window and no moving air.  I tell him my symptoms, fever, runny nose, slight sore throat, fatigue.  While taking my temperature, under my arm...haven’t had it taken that way in years (99.7 or something, down for a change) he asks me about three times if I’ve been nauseous in the last three days...in my head I’m thinking carsick and seasick don’t count he’s trying to diagnose me with malaria, which I don’t have because I haven’t been vomiting...I say no.  As I sit there watching him scribble something onto a piece of paper I wait for the standard procedure, stick out your tongue, let me listen to your heart, let’s take your blood pressure, I’m going to look in your ears, in your nose and so on... none of that happens.  He hands me the scribbled on paper with my prescription... paracetamol and some type of cold and flu medicine I’ve never heard of.  I am to take 2 paracetamol 3 times a day and 1 cold and flu pill three times a day.  I’m too dazed to comprehend at first that this is 9 pills a day. I don’t even take advil for headaches...9 pills?  But without question I stand up and tell him asante sana (thank you very much) and we head to the pharmacy to.

By the time we get back to the house it has registered that this doctor man has prescribed me a heck of a lot of medicine without knowing any of my history, I start to worry.  I voice my concerns to Zik explaining that I am not sure if taking this high of a dosage is really all that good for me given my lack of history with medicine taking. He got a little feisty and told me that what the doctor prescribes is what you should take. Rather than get defensive toward his snappiness I just started crying and walked away and told anyone that would listen that I just wanted to talk to my mom or at the very least I wanted Momma Kate to come home so that she could tell me what to take.  Mom’s should really be the only one’s qualified to deliver basic first aide and healing advice, they know best, you can see the proof in their healthy children...plus they always know what to say to make you feel better, and bring you tea...they’re just great!

Seeing my distress, Kit starts investigating my medications.  Both contain paracetamol, 500mg each, which means if I took the prescribed doses of both medications I would overdose on paracetamol by the end of the day.  Overdosing on paracetamol can cause liver failure, granted I don’t think that would have happened to me, my liver is quite healthy despite the damage I’ve done to it at college, but this doctor man doesn’t know my history...what if my liver weren’t so great... I shouldn’t be so harsh, he was fitting us in to his already overpacked day, he was doing us a favor and I was grateful...I’m just stubborn and I hate medicine.

Momma Kate comes home and I immediately ask her what I should do, she can’t understand why he would prescribe me two things with paracetamol in it and advises me to take one or the other but not both. Since my nose and throat are my biggest problems right now I decide to alter my medications and take two cold flu medicine things with the paracetamol stuff in it and hope for the best.

The best, unfortunately, is not what befalls me.  I wake up the next morning covered in a red splotchy flat to my skin rash all over my arms, legs and chest.  I panic...Kate informs me that I am having an allergic reaction...hmmm.  Back to the hospital for me again today.  CCS’s typical doctor is not in today, so I have to see another one.  The wait is even longer this time, there might be closer to 100 mothers with babies here today.  When I finally see the doctor and explain my symptoms, the first thing he does is scold me for not being able to tell him about my symptoms in Swahili.  No one will ever be allowed to say “Learn the language” or “Speak American” in my presence again.  All I want it to feel better and this guy is making an ass out of me...Super.

My weird weird rash.

He ends up telling me that I am in fact having an allergic to the paracetamol and will need two injections of hydrocortisone (didn’t know that came in anything other than cream form) and that I have a sinus infection so I’ll need to take a round of amoxycilan.

Amoxycilan I’ve heard thanks to Ursinus College, where the Wellness Center hands it out regardless of what symptoms you walk in with, but needles, here, now...YIKES!

As it turns out, there’s no need to worry.  The syringes they use are individually packaged and there’s a biohazard bin.  First the nurse checks out the veins in the crooks of my arms, my veins are never easy to find even under the healthiest of circumstances and after five minutes of coaxing she gives up and decides to use the back of my left hand.  Thankfully she gets out an IV line because the needle is smaller than the syringe and sets to work.  I get lightheaded of course, I always do, but it’s over relatively quickly.  The doctor smiles at me and says now all I have to do is come back in 12 hours to get another. Great exactly what I wanted to do tonight at midnight...

It ends up being a group affair, three of my roommates decide to come along for my second injection.  Two haven’t seen the hospital yet and the other has been there for the other two visits so why not make it three for three.  We all wear pants for the first time because it is surprisingly cold, or maybe we’ve all just adjusted to the blazing heat of the day.  The hospital is a bit unsettling this late at night, with no one around and no flashes of color to distract me.  We find the right nurse and she sets to work setting up my shot.  She misses twice in the crook of my arm and then shoves the huge syringe needle into the back of my right hand.  This time I get seriously lightheaded....but it’s over....and with any kind of luck I will not be seeing this particular place for the rest of my trip.

Sticking the huge syringe needle into the back of my hand.