Sick...

So, I thought that you deserved some news that was not horribly outdated. Here's the first of a few.

So apparently Africa and I haven't hit it off so well. I am, yet again, sick.

Last week on Wednesday or Thursday (12th or 13th of November), I started having a sore throat and thought that another cold was coming on. I lost my voice (still don't have a voice...), and had all the normal cold symptoms- runny nose, sore throat, etc. But it just wasn't going away, and I started feeling wheezes in my lungs.

I talked to James on Tuesday... Bronchitis it is! Or at least that's what James is treating it as. So, I'm taking medicine, and to fix the wheezes in my lungs, he prescribed me some salbutamol breathing treatments. It has definitely been an interesting experience to use the nebulizer here. I've never had to do anything like that before, and I don't like it. When I finish with the medicine, I feel like I've just downed a shot of straight caffeine because it makes my heart race and I get all jittery. No good.

That night I started to get a fever, and I thought, "This can't be good..." All day Wednesday, I felt absolutely miserable. I had a fever all day long, severe nausea, headache, achy muscles, and just in general felt drained. I took a malaria test, but it came back negative. Sometimes we get false negatives, but I decided not to take the medicine just yet. I think I'm going to get re-tested on Friday if it persists. I may just start taking the malaria treatment anyway even if it's negative again. We'll see.

Lest you think that this is a completely negative blog, I will add here a blessing. We had been planning a big bike trip for a few weeks now, and it was supposed to happen this past Sunday. I went to bed on Saturday night not feeling any better- still had a very sore throat, coughing, runny nose, etc. But on Sunday morning, I woke up feeling so much better! I still didn't have a voice, and I was coughing a little bit, but I decided that I would go anyway.

We had an absolutely amazing time! It was one of the best times I've had yet in Chad. I'll have to write about it in a separate blog, but it was super fun. And I was so blessed because I was able to go, and I actually didn't feel bad all day long. We biked for probably a total of 40 km that day and went swimming. I know God must have been with me, helping me to have the energy and the health to go, and I am so very thankful.

*Post note: It's now Friday. I got re-tested for malaria, and while I was at it, I did some other tests too. The last three days I've been really fatigued. I haven't really had energy to move around much, and I was trying to figure out why, because usually I don't get that way with fevers and such, at least not that bad. I began to wonder what my hemoglobin was because I had recently given blood and stuff, so I had that checked too. The results? Malaria it is. And my hemoglobin was 10.3 g/dl (normal is somewhere above 12), so that explains the fatigue. So I got some malaria medicine and some iron pills. That ought to fix me up real fast :D I'm actually trying a different medication than Quinine this time... I have to take four pills twice a day, and it's only for three days. But I still have to take Doxy for a week. And while the new medicine lacks many of the side effects that Quinine brings, it most definitely makes me very nauseated and is probably the most disgusting thing that I've put in my mouth since entering Chad. No joke. But life is good.