Almost. . .
I now know that I got sick in Mali (or even before in Burkina Faso), but the symptoms didn't show until I arrived in Dakar.
My flight arrived around 1am on Wednesday and by 10am I was on my first tour of Dakar, lead by Karim Abdul. We walked and walked and walked from the University of Dakar to the beach to the president's palace and through all the major markets. It was hot and we were walking fast. By 3pm I suddenly felt very tired and we headed home. The next two afternoons I walked around the city escorted by two Gabonese students.
Friday night I stood in the kitchen, eating and talking to my hostess. As I ate, I began to sweat and I felt like I was going to faint. I went to my room to lay down. In the middle of the night I woke up to turn off the fan because I was cold. I thought, this is amazing, the first cool night since I've been in Africa. When I thought about it again, it seemed too strange. I looked at the temperature on my travel clock. It was 85 degrees. Oh boy! I'm sick!
There was nothing I could do so I lay there until morning. By then I was freezing and shivering in spite of the rising morning temperature. I told my hostess I thought I was sick. By mid morning she and the housekeeper, Cora decided I had the symptoms of malaria and should go to the hospital. At this point I was feeling delirious and could barely stand. I was sweating profusely and felt very weak. With Cora and the house guard flanked on each side, we slowly made our way to the hospital four blocks away.
It was a nightmare at the hospital. I was miserable and could not sit up. People in far worse condition than me were coming in. It was a depressing scene. (I had visited one other hospital and an AIDS hospice in Ghana. We have it made in the U.S.) I was dreading the wait, but at the same time too delirious to really worry about it. Five hours later, I was finally seen by a what I assume was a doctor. I was prepared to use my limited french to describe how I was feeling. But Cora did all the talking, in wolof. So I couldn't understand what she and the doctor were discussing. After noting my profuse sweating and taking my blood pressure, I was diagnosed with malaria and given a prescription for several shots. No exam. My temperature wasn't taken. No blood tests.
In Senegal, the patient is required to go to a pharmacy to get their own medication and bring it back for the nurse to inject. By the time Cora came back with my prescription, adrenaline kicked in and my head was mometarily clear. I was trying not to panic. I had no idea what they were treating me for, nor what medication they were giving me. I could only assume, it was for malaria, since Cora was certain that that is what I had. I pulled out my french phrasebook and put together a question about the medication they were going to give me and if it would have a contra-indication with the malaria pills I had already been taking. When I was called in, Cora went with me. In french, I tried to explain to the nurse that I was taking this medication (I showed it to her) and I wanted to make sure it would not have a bad reaction. She shoved the pills out of my hand and said "Non" loudly and forcefully. She rambled off something in wolof. She tried to hold me down in the chair to give me the injection. I snatched away and again tried to explain. She and Cora both kept telling me no. After a big enough fuss, a man who spoke English came in and translated what I was trying to say. They decided not to give me the shot for malaria, but still gave me a shot, that I later found out was for pain. I was never able to find out exactly what it was.
We made it back to the house and I collapsed in the bed. By late evening, I was beginning to doubt that I had malaria. One of the main symptoms is that your whole body is racked with excrutiating pain. I was weak and dizzy, but not in pain. My hostess decided to call a private doctor she knows that speaks English. (I'm not sure why she didn't mention this before my horrific hospital experience.) We took a taxi and went to her home office. After explaining my symptoms she did a full exam and diagnosed me with a gastrointestinal infection. She prescribed an antibiotic and told me to come back if I wasn't feeling better in two days. Two days later I went back and she sent me to have lab tests and a chest x-ray because I was having trouble breathing. Because getting a taxi and going out took a lot of energy, I decided to wait two days to see if I felt any better. Two days passed with no improvement. I went to the lab and had tests done. Sparing all the gorey details, by the end of the day I had the results and returned to the doctor's for her analysis of the report, which was written in french. The diagnosis: amoebic dysentery. Sounds horrible. Well it was. With the proper diagnosis, she changed my prescription and added iron to the list of pills, since by then I was anemic.
With the change of medication, I felt even worse. Now on top of being weak, sweaty, dehydrated and unable to eat, I was double over in pain. Oh, and just as a safety measure, I was also given a 3-day malaria pill treatment. I was taking so many pills throughout the day that it became my occupation. Some pills required that I eat, which was impossible. I was hating food. It was a battle to keep up the pill regiment. But I knew that I wouldn't get better if I didn't.
By the time I got the proper diagnosis, a week had past. I did nothing all day but lie in bed and when I could focus, I would read. I read any and everything. Whatever was available just to keep from going crazy. By the middle of the second week, I was feeling better, but still too weak to do anything. I knew that I wouldn't have the energy to pack myself into a stiffling hot bus and trek to the next city. I decided it was best to go home. Feeling both disappointed and stircrazy, I knew it would be better to go home and finish recovering there. At least I wouldn't have to be paranoid about everything I ate and drank. After two and half weeks, I was well enough to make the long flight home.
My original plan was to stop in Paris for a few days on the way back. This would have broken up the long flight, but because I was sick, it was condensed into one day. Well, it would have been if I hadn't missed my connecting flight in Paris. I flew from Dakar to Lisbon to Paris to Amsterdam to San Francisco. The flight from Lisbon was two hours late so I just missed the connecting flight in Paris. I stayed the night. I guess I can claim to have been to Paris but I was too tired (and cold) to go out, so my total Parisian experience was a one hour train ride from one airport to the other and the shuttle ride to my hotel. I like what I saw. I'll have to return to both Paris and Senegal.
My flight arrived around 1am on Wednesday and by 10am I was on my first tour of Dakar, lead by Karim Abdul. We walked and walked and walked from the University of Dakar to the beach to the president's palace and through all the major markets. It was hot and we were walking fast. By 3pm I suddenly felt very tired and we headed home. The next two afternoons I walked around the city escorted by two Gabonese students.
Friday night I stood in the kitchen, eating and talking to my hostess. As I ate, I began to sweat and I felt like I was going to faint. I went to my room to lay down. In the middle of the night I woke up to turn off the fan because I was cold. I thought, this is amazing, the first cool night since I've been in Africa. When I thought about it again, it seemed too strange. I looked at the temperature on my travel clock. It was 85 degrees. Oh boy! I'm sick!
There was nothing I could do so I lay there until morning. By then I was freezing and shivering in spite of the rising morning temperature. I told my hostess I thought I was sick. By mid morning she and the housekeeper, Cora decided I had the symptoms of malaria and should go to the hospital. At this point I was feeling delirious and could barely stand. I was sweating profusely and felt very weak. With Cora and the house guard flanked on each side, we slowly made our way to the hospital four blocks away.
It was a nightmare at the hospital. I was miserable and could not sit up. People in far worse condition than me were coming in. It was a depressing scene. (I had visited one other hospital and an AIDS hospice in Ghana. We have it made in the U.S.) I was dreading the wait, but at the same time too delirious to really worry about it. Five hours later, I was finally seen by a what I assume was a doctor. I was prepared to use my limited french to describe how I was feeling. But Cora did all the talking, in wolof. So I couldn't understand what she and the doctor were discussing. After noting my profuse sweating and taking my blood pressure, I was diagnosed with malaria and given a prescription for several shots. No exam. My temperature wasn't taken. No blood tests.
In Senegal, the patient is required to go to a pharmacy to get their own medication and bring it back for the nurse to inject. By the time Cora came back with my prescription, adrenaline kicked in and my head was mometarily clear. I was trying not to panic. I had no idea what they were treating me for, nor what medication they were giving me. I could only assume, it was for malaria, since Cora was certain that that is what I had. I pulled out my french phrasebook and put together a question about the medication they were going to give me and if it would have a contra-indication with the malaria pills I had already been taking. When I was called in, Cora went with me. In french, I tried to explain to the nurse that I was taking this medication (I showed it to her) and I wanted to make sure it would not have a bad reaction. She shoved the pills out of my hand and said "Non" loudly and forcefully. She rambled off something in wolof. She tried to hold me down in the chair to give me the injection. I snatched away and again tried to explain. She and Cora both kept telling me no. After a big enough fuss, a man who spoke English came in and translated what I was trying to say. They decided not to give me the shot for malaria, but still gave me a shot, that I later found out was for pain. I was never able to find out exactly what it was.
We made it back to the house and I collapsed in the bed. By late evening, I was beginning to doubt that I had malaria. One of the main symptoms is that your whole body is racked with excrutiating pain. I was weak and dizzy, but not in pain. My hostess decided to call a private doctor she knows that speaks English. (I'm not sure why she didn't mention this before my horrific hospital experience.) We took a taxi and went to her home office. After explaining my symptoms she did a full exam and diagnosed me with a gastrointestinal infection. She prescribed an antibiotic and told me to come back if I wasn't feeling better in two days. Two days later I went back and she sent me to have lab tests and a chest x-ray because I was having trouble breathing. Because getting a taxi and going out took a lot of energy, I decided to wait two days to see if I felt any better. Two days passed with no improvement. I went to the lab and had tests done. Sparing all the gorey details, by the end of the day I had the results and returned to the doctor's for her analysis of the report, which was written in french. The diagnosis: amoebic dysentery. Sounds horrible. Well it was. With the proper diagnosis, she changed my prescription and added iron to the list of pills, since by then I was anemic.
With the change of medication, I felt even worse. Now on top of being weak, sweaty, dehydrated and unable to eat, I was double over in pain. Oh, and just as a safety measure, I was also given a 3-day malaria pill treatment. I was taking so many pills throughout the day that it became my occupation. Some pills required that I eat, which was impossible. I was hating food. It was a battle to keep up the pill regiment. But I knew that I wouldn't get better if I didn't.
By the time I got the proper diagnosis, a week had past. I did nothing all day but lie in bed and when I could focus, I would read. I read any and everything. Whatever was available just to keep from going crazy. By the middle of the second week, I was feeling better, but still too weak to do anything. I knew that I wouldn't have the energy to pack myself into a stiffling hot bus and trek to the next city. I decided it was best to go home. Feeling both disappointed and stircrazy, I knew it would be better to go home and finish recovering there. At least I wouldn't have to be paranoid about everything I ate and drank. After two and half weeks, I was well enough to make the long flight home.
My original plan was to stop in Paris for a few days on the way back. This would have broken up the long flight, but because I was sick, it was condensed into one day. Well, it would have been if I hadn't missed my connecting flight in Paris. I flew from Dakar to Lisbon to Paris to Amsterdam to San Francisco. The flight from Lisbon was two hours late so I just missed the connecting flight in Paris. I stayed the night. I guess I can claim to have been to Paris but I was too tired (and cold) to go out, so my total Parisian experience was a one hour train ride from one airport to the other and the shuttle ride to my hotel. I like what I saw. I'll have to return to both Paris and Senegal.
