{"id":830,"date":"2022-11-25T17:26:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T17:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kwabene.com\/?p=830"},"modified":"2022-11-26T10:57:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T10:57:35","slug":"08-to-be-sick-in-kitindi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kwabene.com\/?p=830","title":{"rendered":"08. To Be Sick in Kitindi"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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08. To Be Sick in Kitindi<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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PART ONE: ONSET<\/span><\/span>
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I began to feel sick on Monday, October 31, but at first it was so minor that I barely noticed. It typically reaches 80\u00b0 F each day here, but in the mornings it can feel pretty cool, especially if you aren\u2019t dressed for it. Well, I felt a bit cool around 9:00 am that Monday morning, and Veronique, one of my seven 9th graders taking <\/span>Correspondance Commerciale Anglaise <\/span>(or COCOA) took notice. \u201cProf, tu es malade?\u201d she asked. I said I wasn\u2019t sick, just a little cold, and told her to get back to copying notes off the board. She was right, though\u2014it wasn\u2019t just a morning chill\u2014and I told her so by Wednesday.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The open-air classroom where I teach COCOA (yes, I need a haircut)<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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At first the only symptoms I noticed were chills, and I taught through them. That week was the last week of the first period and ended on a Wednesday so that teachers would have time to calculate the first period grades. I planned to grade a bunch of homework and quizzes, tally up points for the first period, and also use the long weekend to flesh out all my lesson plans up to the end of the second period. By Thursday, though, the chills were getting worse and were joined by muscle aches, headache, weakness, and a low appetite. I managed to finish the period\u2019s grades, but I didn\u2019t have the strength to get anything else done that weekend. I hoped to rest through the weekend until the \u201cflu\u201d passed and I had recuped my strength to teach Monday. A nurse named Espoir (French for \u201chope\u201d) came over the weekend to prick my finger for a malaria test, and that came back negative. At the same time, the aching symptoms started to go away, so I was sure the flu was receding, and I assured everyone as much on Sunday and Monday. Due to my absence from church Sunday, two members of the pastoral staff came to pray for me each day, and I thanked them and told them I thought it was almost through.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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But I missed another day of teaching on Monday, and, despite no more aches, the chills and weakness did not go away. On Tuesday the 8th, I tried to teach again, and it did NOT go well. I felt weak and unsteady, my eyes weren\u2019t adjusting to light properly for some reason, and twice I stood up too fast while teaching and my vision blacked out for five seconds. Not good.<\/span><\/span>
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PART TWO: ALARM<\/span><\/span>
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Despite wanting to avoid the village hospitals at all costs (what better place to catch something my body\u2019s never encountered before?), I decided I should talk to someone with local knowledge who could give me a diagnosis. My uncle recommended Dr. Patrick (French pronunciation), and my grandfather and I hired a motorcyclist to take us across town to the hospital where the man who I believed to be the sole physician of Kitindi works (I have recently heard that there might be more, but this is what I believed then). The hospital is in very rough shape\u2014it is composed of a cluster of single-storey buildings, the first of which is roughly built with a floor that might have been cement or stone but was so covered in dust that it looked like a dirt floor. I\u2019m not sure of the building\u2019s electrical capacity (I saw a few bare, dusty bulbs), but no lights were on while we were there. The hallway was dark, and the rooms were lit by sunlight entering through open or partially open windows. From what I saw, this main building had a single narrow hallway that included two rooms on the left and opened in the back and to the left into a third larger room. It was hard to tell what was to the right, but I recall seeing mostly wall which at some point opened into a big, dark open space, the purpose of which I could not discern. I think the first two rooms on the left were for receiving patients, while the third room included a table, a dust-stained cot, and shelves and shelves of white cardboard boxes with various medicines. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The hospital lab<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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We started in this room, where my weight and other characteristics were recorded, then we followed the doctor into one of the receiving rooms where he asked for my symptoms, checked my internal organs, measured my blood pressure (it was pretty low), and looked at the whites of my eyes. He next sent me off to a small, separate, two-room building, one of which included a decent-looking microscope and a hand-cranked centrifuge. Here, my finger was pricked again for blood, yielding another negative malaria test as well as two other negatives for things I didn\u2019t catch. Finally, we rejoined Dr. Patrick where he considered the facts and gave his diagnosis: typhoid. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I bought the medicines he prescribed, but I did not believe I had typhoid. For one thing, I was vaccinated against it last year, and additionally, I had not had stomach problems, and I trusted the cleanliness of my food and water. But if it wasn\u2019t typhoid, what could explain the low blood pressure and the constant, unending cold? That was by far the worst symptom. In a series of WhatsApp messages to my mother that night, I told her:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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No more pain, but still cold\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

And it is such a cold, piercing bone and cloth<\/span><\/p>

Rattling chains<\/span><\/p>

Icy streams<\/span><\/p>

The vast expanse of space<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I was really cold. I didn\u2019t want to overreact if it was just a lasting flu, but I also didn\u2019t want to neglect some unfamiliar tropical illness that might have complications and quickly take a turn for the worst. I started to worry about the possibilities, and that\u2019s when I made a terrible, terrible mistake: I began researching my symptoms online. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Within seconds, I was bombarded with articles foretelling my imminent death. \u201cMuscle aches? Persistent chills? Low blood pressure? You better be sure you\u2019re not dehydrated, or your organs could fail at any moment. Do you have a fever, too? Add a three-day fever to these symptoms, and you\u2019ll require medical attention IMMEDIATELY. I don\u2019t want to sound pessimistic, but if you don\u2019t get to a doctor soon, I give you three, maybe four days to live.\u201d Needless to say, I was slightly concerned and began self-diagnosing to compensate for Dr. Patrick\u2019s oversight.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I don\u2019t get sick very often, and I\u2019m not usually quick to go to the doctor. If something seems off, I tend to think it\u2019s not too bad and will resolve itself. This strategy doesn\u2019t always work, like the time when I assumed my broken finger was just jammed and didn\u2019t have it checked until I had already played 80% of a basketball season. But, perhaps to save myself the time, money, and embarrassment of overreacting, I\u2019m slow to seek medical help. And, because I am rarely sick, I don\u2019t quickly do the things one might normally do right away, like checking my temperature. After reading about how often fever and chills go together and seeing the exhortations of online medical websites to call a doctor if a high fever lasts three days, I decided to check my temperature. It came in the first time at 103.6\u00b0 F, which, in retrospect, might have been a low reading and was a temperature I maintained for who knows how long. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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At this point, my concern reached its peak. What I had read put me on edge, especially because many of the possible diagnoses I found considered time as a factor, claiming the longer I was sick, the more danger I was in and the more important medical attention was. When I first checked my temperature, I was eleven days in. This was of some concern for me, and the reactions of people I was talking to didn\u2019t help much on this front. Additionally, given the lack of medical infrastructure in Kitindi, seeking more serious help would require a two day\u2019s land journey or a very hefty bush plane price to Bukavu (where, even then, the quality of medical care remains unknown to us). Adding to the worry about possible health complications was the distressing conundrum of whether leaving the village and the school for an undetermined period of time was worth it financially or would even make a difference for me health-wise anyway. Given so much uncertainty, it was a question which no one seemed able to answer.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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