African Fever :(

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One of the last things JR (The son of the lady I rented from) said to me as I was backing was, "All this time in Africa and you never caught the African fever. You are lucky...."

So....
I want to apologize that my last blog was slightly arrogant and gloating about Zanzibar. I was cruelly reminded this week that those are good qualities.
Yes, Life up and Smacked me down mightly.

It decided that I needed Africa Fever... yes I got Malaria. I am all better now and safely in Zanzibar so it is alright. My response to JR was "Well, not really. I have Malaria now."

Here is the rest of the story in excuriating detail.
I went to the dinner party and just didn't feel great. Like I had indigestion and just didn't feel like eating lots. This was at 8PM or so. By 9PM I was freezing and by 10PM I was home in bed. I was shaking and had a 100.8 Fever. I had decided with the high fever to start taking an anti-malarial course that I carry with me.

Good idea I think.
The night was one of the longest of my life. I alternated between sleep, cold, hot, and toilet. My 2nd dose of medicine was due to be 8 hours after the first at 6AM. I awoke thinking I can't wait to take more medicine anything to help. It must be almost time now. Maybe if it is 4AM I will take it anyway. It was only midnight. This sort of went on for the next 6 hours. I do remember waking at 6AM to take my second dose thinking that maybe it wasn't malaria and just a bad stomach flu, I felt great.

In that first 2 hours of sleep I had a very interesting dream. I remember thinking, this fever is moving really fast. I mean I went from completely fine to can barely stand up in like 2-3 hours. But I had the drugs. Nothing else to do. But the dream was like... I could see my white blood cells fighting the malaria parasite bastards (sorry for the language) and losing, but they were holding out as best they could. Then I started thinking about pills dissolving and it doesn't happen instantly. You know a little dissolves and goes riding off to the fight. As the first particles of medicine get to the "fight" the white blood cells cheer the coming of the cavalry. They are motivated to just hold out a little longer. They did. I won, eventually.

Ok so I was feeling better in the morning. While during the night I swore I wasn't getting on my bus, by morning I decided it wouldn't be so bad. So I packed. Then didn't feel so good so when and got a malaria test, that confirmed. But I was told to just finish my course and I would be fine.

I really was mostly better. The fever was broke. I was tired, queazy and still needed a toilet but I was fine.
Not sure if taking on a "30" hour bus ride was the right call, kind of foolish actually... but then... well there ya go.
There are advantages to being sick on a long bus ride. It doesn't seem so monotous because all I wanted to do was sleep. Of course I was afraid to eat anything.

On Wednesday at 6AM I took my last dose. I still felt queazy and I hadn't eaten since Monday dinner. Oh well.
By Wednesday at around 1pm I felt good and ready to eat. Too bad I still had 10 hours of bus ride left.

Oh yeah, so I have to say that new drug that I took is really amazing. Within less than 48 hours of coming down with Malaria I was fine. (oh yeah, it is something from China... Artramen or something like that, if you want to know)
I even did some silly partying last night on the beach in Zanzibar. Which surprised me I figured I would be in to bed by 8 but nope, didn't work out.

Well that is my story of getting smacked around by life for being too cocky.
Could have done without that experience.


OH yeah, I am on prophlaxys (you spell it), Malaria meds. But even on those you can get malaria. I also find it funny that I spent my night with fever after I had just given away my mosquito net and bug spray to others that needed them.
Oh well, such is life.

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