The Incredibly ill Ehlen aka the hospital part II

So, the friday before the hike up the volcano (see previous entry), I was diagnosed with another stomach thing...amebas to be precise (disease numero 4). There is nothing like the feeling of knowing some little thing is living and breeding in your stomach. Even with this knowledge, I climed up the volcano....what a stupid move.

Monday and Tuesday I felt horrible, but I figured it was b/c of the volcano...makes sense right. Climb when sick equals longer recovery. Then on Wed I broke out into a 103 - 104 degree fever with incredible joint pain. Knees, lower back, hips and a pounding headache. So I went to the training center and I called the nurse and she asked me if I wanted to come into the capitol or spend the night with my host family. I said with my host family. I then spent the afternoon in the training center in the a/c only to feel worse and worse. So, what wound up happening is I went back to my host family to pack some clothes and then was driven to the hospital.

The second time wasn´t so bad. This nurse was better at putting in the IV and drawing blood. The doctor came in, looked me over and said....I think you have dengue. Love tropical deseases. Feel free to research this desease before continuing with the blog. I didn´t sleep at all. The AC was on high, but I was still sweating up a storm. And there were no comfortable positions. It really sucked. I slowly got more comfortable the next day and finally slept thursday night. During this time, I also found out another trainee was in a few rooms over. Apparently he´s got it too. I´m not too surprised, we live in the same training community. I stopped in before I left for the hotel....he didn´t look so good.

I stayed in the hospital till Friday when they shipped me out to a hotel. No, not a five star. A little one that has ac and cable. The only problem is that when you are suspected of having dengue (i´ll talk about why suspected and not known in a sec), they put you in a seperate hotel from all other volunteers in town. They found when they put us all together, dengue kept being spread to the same people from the mosquitos. So, I´m basically by my- self aka quaranteened. (Cue violin in the backround). The trick to dengue...testing wise...is that it doesn´t show up on dengue tests until the desease has mostly run it´s course.

I´m now waiting to see whether I have dengue or a UTI (yes, another....but they are having trouble confirming this one as well...one came back positive, the other negative) or maybe I have both. Sweet.

So, now i´m chillin.....if anyone would like to write, please feel free. I don´t mind saying it´s a little hard right now.