MPS+2

I thought and hoped that I could get through 8 1/2 months in Africa without getting malaria. Well, I made it the first 138 days!

Yesterday I woke up with a headache. I thought it was due to the fact that I hadn't fallen asleep until 1am. Then in the late morning I started feeling really nauseated. That got worse and worse as the hours went by. When I returned from my lunch date with my friend Marsha, I had a fever of 99.4. My temperature is usually around 97.7 instead of 98.6, so once I hit 99 I know I have a fever. At that point I thought I had food poisoning from some bad yogurt. Then Davona informed me that food poisoning doesn't give you a headache or a fever. So I went to get tested for malaria.

By this time I was really dizzy and achy and just so tired. I managed to ride the dala-dala to the clinic (about 10 minutes, plus a short walk). A dala-dala is basically a mini-van sized car stuffed with 20-30 people. It's not uncommon to sit at least partially on top of someone. This is not comfortable when you're sick.

At the clinic I was the only patient. The nurses remembered me because I often bring in sick babies or sick volunteers, so they helped me quickly. The lab lady (who also is the cleaning lady) poked my finger and rubbed the blood on the glass slide. I've always wondered if it hurt to rub the bleeding finger on the glass slide (since I've watched them do it to so many babies) but it doesn't. Whew. I was pretty out of it at this point, but I think I glared at the lady rather suspiciously when she pulled out the needle because she assured me it was new (and I think she was offended that I thought her incompetent enough to not use a new needle). It was new. I watched her snap open the plastic case.

Usually it takes 10-20 minutes for the results. I waited and waited and waited. While I waited I sang praise songs. It was the only thing that kept me feeling decent.

After at least 20 minutes (maybe 30), the head nurse (or maybe she's a doctor) pulled me aside and told me that their transmitter had caught fire so the power had been shut off. Hence they couldn't use the microscope to test me for malaria. Disappointed and confused, I went home.

At home I laid around for a while before deciding to take the malaria medication I brought with me. Because of the prevalence of malaria here in Tanzania, the rule of thumb is to assume it's malaria until proven otherwise. I remembered that I had an unexplained cough earlier this week (a symptom of malaria in children and sometimes in adults). Then I threw up. I don't ever throw up. In fact, this is only the second time I've thrown up in 10 years. So I took the medicine.

I fell asleep at a quarter to seven and slept until around 7:30am, waking up every 3 hours. I took my temperature every time I woke up and it ranged from 100.4 to 100.7 F. I was so exhausted, physically and mentally (I think mentally from all the vivid dreams I had, most about work!).

This morning I've felt better as the hours go by. In fact, I think my temperature is almost gone, though I haven't checked lately.

I texted the hospital this morning, and the lady wrote back that my malaria test came back positive. The technical wording is MPS+2, which means Malaria ParaSite positive 2, meaning there are 2 malaria parasites per certain amount of blood. This is average malaria. +3 is bad, and anything higher than that is really bad.

I'm not thrilled that I have malaria, but I'm happy that I did the right thing starting the meds last night. It's important to start them early.