Just squashed a mosquito. Pesky little buggers. Did you know that there are actually different kinds of mosquitos? I never knew this until I saw one down here a few weeks back that had white stripes on its legs. I'm sure there are many different kinds as well, but this is the one that currently has my attention. Why? Well because it's the one that carries the virus dengue, and one of them has given this beauty of a virus to me.
Last Monday I woke up feeling just a little bit off. I finished up my shift at 8 and then was watching the Hoffman boys over at their place till about 9 and doing a few other random things before I was able to head up to bed to catch up on some sleep. I had slept fine the night before, but I could feel a headache and fever coming on so I thought I hurry up and try to sleep it off. That simply did not happen. I woke up shortly after and was just freezing cold. I covered up with as many layers as I could find, but still couldn't seem to stop the chills. I also tried to drink a little water, but couldn't get much down without thinking it was all going to come back up, so I just tried to back to sleep. Long story short, I had a massive headache most of the day and can only imagine what my fever must have been. I tried not to get out of bed if I could help it, but when I had to I went pretty quick because I got dizzy pretty easily if I was upright. I'm embarrassed that I didn't try to contact Kristin sooner, but in my defense I am usually able to just sleep things off. I had an idea in my head that when Evelin came up to the room to get her things (she works at the home, aslo the 24hr shift, and just leaves some stuff in my room) I would ask if Kristin was back (she was gone earlier because Paul was in the hospital- he's doing pretty good now) and then give her a call. It was Kristin, however, that ended up knocking on my door at around 8pm, and I told her that I wasn't feeling well, and she decided I needed to be taken in to the ER because I was dehydrated. Well, it was an interesting trip from my room upstairs out back to the front of the house outside to the car, but with the help of Kristin and a friend Raquel, and honey water and a cotton swab wetted with alcohol, we were able to make it. It took a while, but we got there.
So we went to the ER and they took my temperature and it was 104! Holy smokes. So they got me hydrated and killed the fever and ran some tests to try and figure out what was up. Nothing came back real helpful, but I was surprised to find out that I appear to have a heart murmur. After about two hours they sent me home and said to come back if I had more problems. So I went home and went to bed, feeling much better than I had all day. I took the next few days off and was feeling a lot better, although my mind was still just a bit cloudy, if you know what I mean. I felt better, but just not quite myself. But, after another test we were able to find out that I have a bacterial infection (which is common in the states but stronger down here apparently) and also amoebas. So I am taking some medication for the infection and after that's done I'll be getting rid of the amoebas- right now they're just in a very early stage I guess. So, then on Friday I went to a cardiologist and he listened to my heart and used some machine to look at its pulse or something and he thought it would be good for me to get an echocardiogram and then come back. But he didn't seem real worried either. At the most it will probably just be something that I will have to get looked at once a year to make sure it's not getting any worse.
Saturday I finally went back in and spent the day with my kids (I had visited for a few hours but that's not the same!). It was so good to be back with them. I missed them quite a lot. Then, Sunday, I woke up with a headache again. But it wasn't horrible, so I thought I'd get some sleep and try to get rid of it. Hahaha. Yeah, it didn't work, again. So, I texted Paul to see if Kristin could come check my temp when they came home from church, and for whatever reason the nastiness decided to leave right before she did. Interesting.
Anyways, so I've been doing better since then. We contacted a doctor friend that we know and she's the one that told us it is probably dengue. So I took another few days to rest and recover and seem to be doing fine at the moment, but who knows when the headache/fever tag team will decide to strike again. I guess it usually takes a total of around 20 days to run its course, so hopefully I only have two weeks left. I've never been one to get real sick, so this has been a new experience for me, and not much fun, but that's life I guess sometimes. It's just especially funny to me that I came here to take care of sick little kids and now I'm the sick kid that's getting taken care of. But it's been good and humbling and just good for me to see the body of Christ at work. It's been very encouraging in that aspect. So yeah, hopefully I'll keep getting better. And hopefully we'll find out everything's alright with my heart. But I'm not too worried... God's in control.
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