Ailments caught while abroad? And not just travelus wanderitis.
I came across a lovely picture of the feet of the Travel Camel covered in a rash
ick! And remembered Ed Vallance's harrowing stories of contracting Malaria.
My battle with malaria, part 1: the beginnings of an illness that nearly killed me
I've had my own skirmishes with international hospitals over the years, what about you? Any weird and horrific sicknesses or share a defying-death story?
Oh, and contracting Syphilis does not count...that is a do-it-to-yourself project.
Reply to this I had Dengue Fever about a year ago and that was not a nice experience. It took me a good 2 months to recover fully from it.
Reply to this A memorable time for me, for all the wrong reasons. It took me six months to fully recover from Scrub Typhus, and a tough time it was.
Here is another Dengue Fever story, one of the perils of living in South-East Asia:
A Dengue Halloween in Malaysia Reply to this In Africa we had decided to indulge and go to Cape Town for 3 days before heading back to the 'jungles' so to speak 😊 But... that night i got some sort of gastro and by 1am my hubby had it too. It was the worse gastro i'd ever had and as we only had one toilet one of us (me) was using the foyer toilet as well. Turned out the hotel had a virus going through it and had already called out a doctor for other customers so we ended up getting needles of something to stop our bodies from heaving up everything. However... whatever it was didnt stop that easily and it took us 2 more days of stomach cramps etc before we recovered...just in time for our flights home.
So no tourist stuff for me in Cape Town... i can however describe the Radissons hotel foyer and its amentities in great detail 😞
Reply to this I smuggled shrimp larvae back into Australia from either Flores or Komodo up my nose (accidently of course - i still have no idea how they got up my nose, all I can think is perhaps when I was swimming as diving my nose is covered by my mask).....which ended up of course dying and decaying and creating this huge ball of gunk and..yuck.. in my sinus cavity and an ensuing massive fever and shivers and shakes because my body was obviously trying to deal with the foreign invaders but the shrimp larvae werent discovered for 8 days while they were treating and testing me for everything from dengue to japanese encephalitis..i kept saying it felt like something was inside my head..why dont doctors listen?? One doctor finally tried to look up my nose and said...Theres something up here..and it doesnt look pretty..hmphff.
I buy my seafood from reputable outlets nowdays :-)
Reply to this Unfortunately I have gotten to know a few international hospitals in my time. Seems others actually go there on purpose! Thanks for sharing your experiences The Great Walsh of China
Beijing Hospital Experience.
Then there are the misfortunate accidents like Kuan Yins
Travels with a Shattered Knee with her newly zippered knee
[Edited: 2012 Dec 16 22:41 - cabochick:5863 ]
Reply to this Ugh! The thought of getting gall or kidney stones while on the road is scary. Anyone who has experienced this pain knows. Thanks for sharing Janice and Bob
Look Ma - No Gallstones! Even got a souvenir to take away
[Edited: 2012 Dec 16 22:37 - cabochick:5863 ]
Reply to this Beach snowboarding equals a broken collarbone in China....
Pete looks like he may have learned from this experience.
Reply to this No photos I'm afraid but we caught a few creepy crawlies while we were away.. nothing too horrific though thank goodness!
- Sophie caught nits (headlice) from the children in Cambodia
- Sophie got a tick in an unmentionable place in Bolivia.. having Dale burn it off with a cigarette wasn't something she'd like to repeat!
- Sophie got some weird fungal rash all over her back. We managed to get some cream from a pharmacist which cleared it up but it has reoccured a few times back here in the UK. It played havoc with the tan after it left a bunch of white marks to show where it had been!
Dale.. managed to avoid most things!!!
Reply to this Yikes Cockle!! Nice bonk on the noggin!!
Ooff and Sophie with her creepy crawlies....!!! Good job missing out Dale!
I think 'little wing' wins with her smuggled shrimp larvae....I threw up a little in my mouth on that one!!
[Edited: 2012 Dec 19 07:10 - cabochick:5863 ]
Reply to this Have got no grisley photos either... but on our last trip we saw the insides of way too many medical facilities.
Faye had to have surgery in Vietnam as her IUD decided to go on it's own travels, perforating her uterus and ending up lodged somewhere among her intestines.
My eldest son caught what we thought was chicken pox, until we realised the distribution was all wrong and it spread to me and his brother. He had a rather wonderful case of impetigo (Strep), leaving him with hundreds of crusty sores all over his body... AntiB's all round though and it disappeared just as quickly as it came!
My youngest developed a TB Abscess under his armpit (about the size of a ping pong ball, which is pretty huge on a 1 year old). This lovely thing was a result of his BCG Vaccine which we had prior to leaving in the UK. The treatment was to rub some special antibiotic gel onto it for months, until it finally goes away or bursts... You can guess what his did... Mmmm nothing like seeing tons of pus pour out from under your babies t-shirt whilst playing on the beach!!! He has a really cool scar there now though!!!
On our first big trip we had no trouble at all, other than the usual occasional fluids shooting out of both ends.... 😊
Reply to this the usual occasional fluids shooting out of both ends
No travel seems complete without this occurring at least once. It seems to be part of an initiation process to consider yourself a traveller - a severe dose of Delhi Belly/Mummy's Curse/Montezuma's Revenge.
And I thought my Scrub Typhus was a tough one, you have a whole trail of ailments to contend with - that is really doing it tough.
[Edited: 2012 Dec 21 14:25 - The Travel Camel:11053 ]
Reply to this eek that is some serious road trauma MichaelnFaye! Poor Faye. The boys obviously bounced back without a blink. And yes, Travelcamel I have no idea how you made it through Typhus.
I know all about the Montezuma's revenge first hand, Mexico being my destination of choice. It is never pretty. No pictures on that thank you.
Reply to this I cannot seem to find the blog I read a while back of an Australian woman who was hospitalized with a whole lot of broken after being struck by a car at a crossing. I felt so bad for her, she and her man were on a long trip. I wonder how she is doing and if she did finally get her flight on Qantas back to Oz. Anyone see that one?
Reply to this Yes..trying to remember the blogger...hope everything went ok for them. I remember reading Michael and Fayes blog about their sons abcess...handled so calmly but would have been so worrying.
For the travellers belly I found an interesting cure in PNG the locals use..when everyone on the boat except me had..a touch of the delicates..they make a thick gluggy soup of rice with tonnes of local garlic in it, whip it off the heat, crack 2 raw eggs into it and a cup of lime juice...ive never used it travelling but have at home and it does seem to work. As long as you have access to a pot, rice, fire, limes that is.
Andrea I still freak if i see those sea monkey things..it was a far from pleasant experience although after this last weeks events i believe it could have been resolved a lot quicker if i had gone to a different hospital. The same hospital this week has given me the following diagnosis list....heart attack, then a chest infection, then pneumonia then a pulmonary embolism......of which i had none. So much for oh no cancel your holiday and you cant dive again...3 days off IV lines and im outside watering the garden at 2am full of energy once the right diagnosis was found...only 14 more days and I CAN travel and CAN dive YAY!
Reply to this We haven't had too many illnesses since we left the UK. The main ones were Donna with a few incidences of giardia at awkward moments - second day of the Inca Trail and just before a 16 hour sleeper bus journey in India where the driver refused to have a toilet stop for women! The other was Donna getting a staph infection which resulted in nasty boils and a 3 week course of antibiotics.
The biggest illness related problem was in March this year when Donna's parents came to visit and her Dad came off his moped and ended up having emergency surgery for a fractured humerus and dislocated shoulder -
Emergency Landing...Dislocation...Fracture...not a good way to start a holiday. Not a pleasant experience but luckily my parents had excellent insurance!
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