Originally I was going to write a post on how malaria wasn’t a big deal. It is extremely common, and for me it really wasn’t all that bad, I’ve had colds that were worst- just a fever, nausea, and body weakness for three days.
Sure the nine-hour ordeal to see a doctor was sucky, and there was dealing with a douchy lab tech who thought it was funny to not take my blood for 20 minutes until he finished sufficiently laughing at Colombia and asking for cocaine (Seriously, do I come to your country to make fun of your poverty and AIDS? No. So just take my damn blood and do your job. But unfortunately I couldn’t say that.) Nonetheless, two injections and five days of medicines later I was as good as new.
I was quite literally in the middle of writing this post when my friend Jamie who had woken up with a tummy ache called for me. Tummy aches and/or diarrhea are as common as breathing in this constant traveling, we all go through it and generally you take it easy and sleep it off with some pepto bismol.
When Jamie woke up with cramps, he was off to rest. A few hours later we find him with barely breathing, a 105 fever, a 140 pulse, and completely delirious. His limbs seemed to be paralyzed as he seemed to be hallucinating. Panic hit everyone; here we are 40 minutes away from the closest hospital. There’s no 911, no ambulance or EMTs, not even a paved road.
We managed to get a taxi and carry him on. I insisted someone that new CPR had to come with since his pulse kept racing and his heart could stop. Everyone was too panicked, so it became my task. It was by far the scariest 35 minutes of my life. Granted the conversation we had as I tried to calm him in his panicked delirium was priceless, eg: “Wait, I’m going to the hospital?? I don’t know how to use a bedpan!” (Insert tears).
We made it to the hospital. I was expecting some big emergency entrance, but there is no such thing. There is no emergency room, no monitors, no hooking up to an immediate IV or oxygen mask. There is a casual glance from a doctor, smirking nurses at the delirious obruni, and me and Auntie Grace running around from one desk to the other trying to get him treated. It was 45 minutes later before they got an IV on him, only after he vomited twice, and we got an old lady to run and purchase toilet paper so he could use the bathroom with diarrhea (bedpan worry was unnecessary). 20 of those 45 minutes were wasted with a pharmacist who thought it was hilarious to hit on me, ask me for a visa and make fun of the fact that we could pay without insurance before he gave me the IV drugs he needed. In the end, the diagnosis was severe malaria.
A night in the hospital, lots of drugs and rest and he was alright. He is actually sitting next to me right now laughing at the things he said in his panicked tearful delirium. (Some of which we’ve agreed will never leave my mouth...)
Nothing has ever made me so appreciative of our messed up yet efficient American medical system. We went to a private hospital, one of the best in the entire region, and to think of how easily the situation could’ve gone tragically wrong is truly terrifying. At home, I spend so much time complaining about issues without our medical system, issues that now seem so trivial. I never imagined that in Ghana I would experience something so unbelievably scary yet powerful, an experience that will forever be in my memory, and will undoubtedly shape how I carry on my future career.
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