May 14-20
Hello everyone!
Most of my blogs are normally about amazing locations in
interesting destinations. This one is a bit different. It’s set in my house.
Why? Well I haven’t really been able to leave it for the past week…
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| Guess which one has malaria? |
I woke up on Wednesday (May 15th) feeling OK, if
a little cold. I taught my regular day at school, though was raising some
eyebrows that I was walking around in glorious sunshine and 25°C
in a hoodie. Man flu, I told them. I got through a meeting, forced a bit of
food down me (I didn’t seem hungry for some reason) and went home shaking in
the car. Still in a hoodie. Feeling increasingly frail and making some strange noises
which some would equate with breathing, I hopped into bed. The time had just
passed 2:30 pm.
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| My sanctuary for a few days |
Aside from a couple of staggers to the toilet and sending
messages to say there was no way I was working on Thursday (May 16th),
I was asleep until gone 4am. I woke up, feeling blindingly hot. Understandable
as I was fully clothed under a duvet, I thought. Going to the toilet confirmed
I was severely dehydrated.
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| The dark amber colour of my urine makes me think I was like the character on the right of this picture |
I spent the day in bed, counting myself lucky that our power
situation is quite good at the moment (either owing to the torrent of rain in
2019 or the upcoming election, not sure which). My head was pounding and
sweltering, being soothed by a fan on full blast; my body was shaking under a
duvet. Half a piece of toast and lots of water was all I was interested in.
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| I was drinking over 5 litres of water a day |
When Hannah returned from school, I asked if she could take
me to the doctor. We have a clinic quite close but everything felt like a
struggle, with Hannah even deciding to drop me at the entrance instead of
parking. I leant on the desk the whole time I was signing in, unable to independently
hold myself up for long.
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| The clinic at ABC in Area 47 |
I was shown into a ward a little bit larger than my bedroom.
There were 3 beds, each with a mother and young child. Curtains were there but
weren’t being used for privacy purposes. Some of the children were incredibly
brave; others were screaming murder, particularly when one nurse couldn’t get
the needle in properly.
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| I was given pain relief pills - a few days later, Mini decided that she wanted to try them too...luckily, she only ate one! |
My nurse pulled out a thermometer and stuck it pistol-style
next to my sweating head. Oh, your temperature is too high. Too high.” Always
reassuring to hear, and I thoroughly enjoyed her repeating it many times. I had
my blood taken and was told to wait for the doctor to analyse it. “I hope it’s
not malaria,” I whispered at full voice. Weakness had spread to my mouth as
well (some would say every cloud has a silver lining). Doctor Brian returned
about 20 minutes later and started speaking in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone.
“We have looked at
your blood sample. The malaria is stage 3…”
He didn’t really mention the word again for a while, so I
had to double check with him. Yes, I did have malaria. Many thoughts crossed my
mind, ranging from the downright ridiculous (excellent, something to blog
about) to the rational (people get this here all the time, they know what to
do) to the concerned (stage 4 is the danger zone and I’m at stage 3?).
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| 4 plus signs is the most severe, though I'm not sure of the details |
I was given some pills – paracetamol for the firework
display happening in my head, D-ARTEPP for the plasmodium parasite (of course I
Googled it, and of course I have no idea what that really means). A few
messages – mainly to parents in my class, who were expecting an all-singing,
all-dancing assembly the following morning – and then bed.
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| The number of pills you take is based on weight - I took 1.5 a day |
Malaria is an incredibly frustrating disease for someone
like me who can’t sit still for two TV episodes, let alone lay prone in a bad
for days as you don’t have the energy to do anything else. I’m sure my time
could have been served more productively, instead of watching Netflix and
napping. But the main advice is drink lots of fluids and rest. Reading made me
fall asleep. There was no desire to cook when I didn’t want to eat (my weekend
food was almost exclusively little bits of KFC). As for half-marathon training…
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| One solitary drumstick kept me going for a long time |
I improved each day – by Saturday (May 18th) I
was able to go to watch a bit of TV next door and stay awake for most of the
day. Sunday (May 19th) I could move a lot more freely. By Monday
afternoon (May 20th), I felt just about back to normal with limited
meds needed as the headaches had died down. Normal enough to write this,
anyway. I can’t watch any more TV.
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| My class made me a card, very sweet! Also showed that quite a few of them can't spell my name... |
Some people may suggest that I wouldn’t have gotten malaria
if I was on pills such as Malarone or Doxycycline to prevent the disease from
spreading. My common answer is that I’m not here on holiday – I live here, and
have done for almost 3 years now. 1000 days. Is it feasible to take
preventative medicine for 1000 days? When there’s not much idea about the
long-term damage it could do? I’ve also read that I’ve slightly built up some
immunity to malaria now, not that this was the nicest way of doing that.
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| Taking these every day may give me other negative health effects |
I’ve always told people that Africa is the best place to get
malaria. I have no evidence to back up that bold statement; however, millions of people get it every year.
Most survive, even though the number of deaths is frankly terrifying. They know
how to treat it. The testing is easily done, either in a hospital or
independently from a pack bought at a pharmacy. The treatment pills are
accessible, whereas they may not be in an area where malaria isn’t a threat.
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| Malaria is Latin(ish) for 'bad air', as people used to think the disease was linked to the air they were breathing |
Malawi is one of three African nations trialling a vaccine
which, if successful, could be transformative to the continent.
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| Apparently almost 90% of cases and deaths attributed to malaria happen in Africa |
Nasty and frustrating, malaria has a bad reputation for a
reason. It kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Mosquitoes are one
of the biggest natural killers of our species through passing on this parasite.
If it’s caught early enough, like mine was, then people make a relatively swift
recovery – it doesn’t feel swift at the time, but it was just over a week for
me.
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| The podcast I listen to said that malaria has probably killed 50% of the humans who have ever lived - (very) approximately 54 billion |
I feel lucky – lucky that I didn’t play macho man and wanted
to go to the doctor; lucky that it was caught early enough to be treated; lucky
to get lots of messages of support even from people who I hadn’t told about it.
Malaria is a horrible thing and anyone else who gets it in the future has my
deepest sympathy and hope that they recover quickly.
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| Feeling much better - yes, I'm wearing a lemur onesie |
Love you all,
Matt
Update – I went back
to work on Wednesday. Some of the symptoms (dehydration, headache) were still
there but I was able to handle the day comfortably enough.
