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Published: September 20th 2008
Quick update. In Managua. Have had some kind of allergic reaction to soooomething. No idea. But it{s on my lips, in my nose, on my nose, on my ears, in my ears, and on both ring fingers. Strange part is, though, that it{s in stages. Lips on Tuesday. Outside of ears on Wed. Inside of ears and everywhere else yesterday, the day of hell. Called the PCMO - peace corps med office - yesterday in class while doped up on as many benadryl as allowed all day. Today we had a full day of classes, as well as vaccines and med charlas, so they decided to bring me to Managua 'for observation'. Which means I{m in a nice hotel with free internet.
Don{t worry. They{re taking care of me. But am tuckered out and ready for bed. 8pm already and whatnot. More about yesterday from hell and the adventures in the Nica - and returns to many important emails ' tomorrow or Sunday as I beleive I am staying for the weekend.
Looking forward to a warm shower and flushing toilet, actually ... um, this keyboard doesn{t to smiley faces.... but i{m smiling ....
xoxox
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Saturday
9-20
6am
Managua
Okay, my ordeal....
Woke up Tuesday morning at the usual 5.30am, with my lips on fire. Swollen. Hurting. Okay, fine, either an allergic reaction or the start of something worse. Take meds for both, go about my day trying not to feel self conscious about my lips that FELT as big as Angelina Jolie{s. Apparently, no one else noticed... Get ready to go to bed and, as I lie down, feel intense vertigo and sinus pressure.
A word about feeling dizzy. My room is pitch black. Like, so dark you can{t see your own hand waving in front of you. Vertigo never not sucks. But feeling like the room is spinning, but not able to SEE the room spinning, THAT sucks.
So I get up, and with the help from the soft light from my trusty ipod, look at the Rx bottle and see that, indeed, it can cause dizzyness if not taken with food. Took it about an hour after dinner. So I pull out a granola bar and eat it in bed, trying not to drop crumbs everywhere so I wouldn{t wake up with a line of ants going across my pillow. Eventually fall asleep.
Wednesday wake up, still swollen lips, and get on the bus early to go to a day of tech training with food commercialization.
Cool day. Learned how to make jam, candy, yogurt, soy milk, tofu burgers, and how to make natural medicinal remedies with the plants around us.... and how to add value to all of them, how to propose these products to Nica campesinos, and how to help them realize that the women can earn extra money by selling such things.
Very cool day. But a looong one. And thoughout the day, my nose and ears start to itch. By the end of Wednesday am feeling dizzy. Climb into a PACKED bus from the back emergency exit door - remember they{re all old school busses from the States - get home, tell my mom I{m not hungry, don{t want dinner, take some more benadryl, and go to bed. Still vertigo. Still major sinus pressure when I lie down.
Thursday morning = day of hell. Rains all night. Wake up at 5am and omigod, have to pee. Lips, inside and outside of nose, inside outside of ears, and my hands all have hives. Hike up to the latrine in the early morning rainy light, trying to avoid the rivers of mud and subsequently losing my sandals. Get to the latrine. Start my period. Walk down from the latrine, hit a slick spot of mud and, like in a cartoon, my feet fly up and I land smack! in the mud on my ass. Lovely. Go to the baño to take a shower and wash off the 3 pounds of mud stuck to my legs and my shorts.
And that was only from 5.00 to 5.30am.
Progressively, it just got worse. Thank god we only had Spanish class that morning. At my house. VirginiaTech had been feeling bad the day before, too, with indigestion. Not diarrhea, just indigestion. Usually WM is earlier than any of us, but by 8am, no Iowa. Just me and VirginiaTech feeling like ass in our own special ways.
Iowa's mom comes a while later and says Iowa is very sick, has been going to the bathroom all night and hasn{t slept. But he{ll come to class at 10am.
In the meantime, I{ve been trying to get ahold of the PCMO. After a lot of dropped calls, finally get to speak to them... out on the porch where there{s the best reception with my profe and VirginiaTech listening in since, oh, they speak English and were roughly 6 feet away. PCMO tells me to go to the farmacy and get Allegra for the day and benadryl for the night. Mk can do.... not sure when, though. VirginiaTech talks to them, too, and we give them Iowa's phone number so they can check in with him.
Morning drags on. Noon finally. By this time I have taken over 100 mg of benadryl and 4 ibuprofen for the awesome cramps that are laying waste to the bottom half of me. Have the usual awesome awkward lunch with my profe and wait for our trainers to show up for lunch, along with my Agriculture boss, as per usual at about 12.30. Was going to ask one of my trainers, Jhardcorps, if he could drive me to Esteli to get to the farmacy.
1pm comes. No one else for lunch. VirginiaTech drags his sorry butt to my porch for afternoon Spanish. Also, the reason my Ag jefe, , was to come was for our interviews with him. All during morning and afternoon class we have been working on our presentation for our first charla with our youth group which is to happen at 4.30pm.
Eventually Iowa shows up with Jhardcorps and Agboss. Iowa is out of it, but has been to Esteli, given his stool sample, and gotten Rx. Agboss and I start our 'interview', which is Spanish for, we had a very interesting conversation that seemed like 15 minutes but I was later told was more like 45... Unfortunately, my head was swimming a bit from wearing my glasses all day and, oh yeah, being doped up on so much benadryl...
About the time of the interview, the infection inside of my ears started to move down my neck. And that scared me because, well, that where the esophogus and coratid arteries are. Could feel my heartbeat inside my ears with all the swelling and infection. Awesome.
Go to our youth group charla. Somehow VirginiaTech and I get through it and actually have a decent time explaining things in baby Spanish. But it wholly wears both of us out. We are both sweating and gross and every part of my body with hives is pounding with heat and pain. Need more benadryl.
Other boss, Intimidator, drives me to Esteli to the farmacy to get Allegra. Good deal. Drives me home. I feel I should eat something, though all I want to do is fall in bed. Manage to choke down some gallopinto and a refresco, talk with my mom and neice a bit, cry a bit, watch the telenovela, La Traicion, with them and go fall into bed.
Yesterday morning, Friday, get up. Everything still sucks, though my throat-eardrums are feeling better than the day before. Again, we have a full day of tech classes. Morning is interesting as we had our contact with our partner orgainization, INTA, and it was all in Spanish and I understood the vast majority.
I can understand a good deal more than I can verbalize in the español. And with the very technical vocab we are also learning - to sow, to harvest, to plow, seeds, hoe, shovel, commercialization, technical assistance, value added, health, nuitrition, all about Nica culture... it{s a specific kind of Spanish we are learning. And I was happy that I could understand pretty much everything she said.
In the afternoon we had vaccines with the PCMO and med charlas. At which point I approached the doctor and told her, while crying, that I didn{t know what allergy I had, but something was definitley wrong, that I was doing all I could but that it started Tuesday and now it{s Friday and.... she immediately, no hesitency, said she wanted to bring me to Managua.
So here I am. On Allegra, Benadryl, and Prednisone. With a bag full of the most random stuff as I had to throw it together at the last minute. Feeling slightly better this morning. Also feeling guilty because my compañeros are currently getting on a bus for a full day of tech training and I am sitting here all doped up, but on the internet in a hotel with running water.
I have no idea what caused the allergy attack. The only thing that it could possibly be was 1. mango. I am not normally allergic to mango, but we have heard over and over again that the fruits here are different and some people are allergic to mangos in Nica. And I ate mangos Monday with my neices. Or 2. something on my pillow, since it got progressively worse in the mornings and is mostly centered around my face. As soon as I told mi madre, she immediately changed all bedding. She{s a good Nican mom. I lucked out.
PCMO will pick us up in a few hours to go get checked out. Am here with another compañera who was bit by a dog, it broke the skin, so she has to get rabies vaccs at specific times now. Also, we just saw off another compañera who broke her leg last week and is heading back to to the States. Hopefully she will be coming back to Peace Corps Nica in January with the health group.
So yup. Life is certainly an adventure, and I am very glad that I'm here with the PC as they are taking quite good care of us in all aspects of our training...
Time for emails......
PS Also! Yes, I have received mail! Two letters from Mom and one from Taltal! DON'T SEND BOXES. As ANY box will sit in customs for-ev-ver. Send envelopes. Non descript, manila or white envelopes. Or letters! I have letters to send you, LB and Arielle, written over a week ago, but have yet to find time to get to the post office during office hours. Can barely get on email!
xoxo
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mbaade
molly baade
yes, we have electricity! just not sometimes when the power goes off... and a phone! how do you think i called the PCMO?? and no, you cannot walk to esteli, it's about a half an hour bus ride away. managua is about a 2 hour drive from esteli....