Back on the map

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Hi there,

It's been a while since my last post. I've at home for over 2 months now and it seems I have now finally recovered.

The doctors in Australia had told me to have my heart checked again upon my return in Belgium. The results of these tests were positive. My heart had almost completely recovered. The doctors did however tell me again how 'lucky' I had been. They wanted to take no risks and did another bloodtest.
This test still showed alarming high infection levels. Also I was still suffering from a very bad back ache. The whole investigation (scans, bloodtests, bloodtests and more bloodtests) was done again here in Belgium.
In the end it proved that I never had the 'Leptospirosis' that was diagnosed in Australia. Instead I caught a very common bacteria that unfortunately got into my blood and was able to upset some things that way.

One of the specialists (a big traveller himself) told me about the difference in treatment in Belgium and Australia.
In Belgium you get antibiotics straight away if you have very high fevers, even if their is no clear diagnosis. This makes that antibiotics are prescribed way too often and a lot of bacteria are getting resistent to the medicines. So in the (near?) future alot of the medicines won't function anymore. Alot of diseases that now just keep us away from work for a couple of days will then become life threatening.
In Australia the policy to avoid this doom scenario is to only prescribe antibiotics when there is a clear diagnosis or in a very limited number of cases, as a last resort when the patients situations is very critical (my case). This however means that alot of time can be lost in the treatement of the discease and a lot of damage can be done to the patient.

It's a hard choice. However the Belgian doctor thought that having a patient in the hospital with 40 degrees fever and signs of bacterial infection for 4 days without treatment was a bit extreme even if there wasn't a clear diagnosis.
According to him I could have continued my travels within a couple of weeks with a quick treatment. Not a great thing to hear... but I guess the future will show who has the right policy.

Anyway I spent the summer in Belgium. Since I wasn't allowed to do a lot of physical exercise I have been reading alot...and I managed to study the first 4 chapters of my Japanese course !!! I can say a thing or two in Japanese now but I still hardly understand anything they say on the recordings...

I did a little bit of travelling anyway. Marijke and I got treated to a weekend in Paris by Edgard. We went over there at the end of August. It was a lot of fun. Got to see a lot of Paris, I had never seen before. Some of the highlights were an evening cruise on the Seine and the 'Cabaret' show at the 'Paradis Latin'. Great stuff! Thanks alot to Edgard for the great weekend.

So I now have about 4 months left of my carreer break and I would like to get as much out of it as possible.
Since I don't like unfinished business, I will be flying to New Zealand, Fiji and Australia at the end of October for 3 months to finish what I started.
Before that I wanted to do a little 'try out tour' in Europe. I decided to go to an area in Europe that I don't know that much about but has always interested me for several reasons: the Balkans. I'm leaving tonight and I'll try to stay away from bacteria...and landmines

I hope this reaches you all doing well and I'll talk to you soon.

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Photos

Paris
Everyone knows this one.

Paris
Notre Dame

paris
Pyramid at the Louvre

paris
Cute girl

paris
Nice shopping mall

Comments

[Caroline Tsuji]

Ogenkidesuka?
Ok. So my Japanese is only a step better than yours, but hope you can figure that one out. It's great to read you're doing better, and venturing forth once again. I took the same pic of the fabulous shop in Paris, too. :) I read the comments about drug-resistant bugs with interest, as we covered this in my microbiology class. Our doctors do the same thing here (throw antibiotics at everything), and we're having the same problems. More reason to eat well, and stay healthy! And, wear shoes when we have cuts on our feet!! Safe travels, Jan. Besos, C-

[Frederik]

dag jan hopelijk gaat alles goed met je, lijkt me wel, je ziet er veel beter uit op de foto's, je houdt ons toch aub op de hoogte van je trips, dan heb ik toch tenminste een email die ik graag open doe

[Kathleen]

woohoo
Ha de Jan, Uw wilde haren weer laten wapperen, voorlopig nog up and above, en dan weer down under. Zorg deze keer niet voor een medische primeur aub... Have fun and keep us posted. Ganbatte! Kathleen