Week 11:
Struck down with sudden illness!

August 3, 2019

Last Sunday I suddenly got very sick. I was okay at breakfast and lunch, but after lunch, I started to feel a bit nauseous. I have become nauseous before here and not thrown up, so I decided to ignore my nausea. Big mistake! I was talking with Claire, Evan, and Dakota on the KAFS balcony; I opened my mouth to answer a question and vomited instead. I then threw up 2 more times before I got to the toilets. I threw up again on my way back to the balcony to try and clean up the vomit. I felt more or less okay except for throwing up.

I went to rest in my tent after cleaning up the balcony. But throughout the next two hours or so, I evacuated everything in my digestive system. I was trying to drink small bits of water, but I continued to throw it up. I was wearing 2 shirts, 2 jackets, long pants, and my thick tall socks, then wrapped in my blanket inside my zipped up tent, and I was still freezing cold. I drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours, having strange dreams and a foggy understanding of what was happening when I was awake.

Sam came to check on me and to see if I wanted dinner, I told him I did not. After Sam left, I realized I had no more water in my tent, so I called Carol and asked if she would fill the water bottle that was sitting by my locker and bring it up when she came up for bed. Carol agreed, and I drifted back to sleep.

It was Johnathan who brought my water to me, he had come up to go to sleep earlier than the others. I got up to get it from him, I took a sip and immediately vomited the water up. I said goodnight to Johnathan and crawled back into my tent. I suppose Johnathan must have gone back down and told Fredo that I was very sick because the next thing I remember was Fredo’s voice asking how I was feeling. I thought at first that I was dreaming because Fredo never came up to the volunteer’s tent sites. But he was there, and so was Sam, Patricia, Olivia, and one of the groundskeepers. Fredo said they were going to take me to the hospital (it is actually a small ‘clinic’ with only a nurse). I think I said that it was night time and the clinic was closed and I could go in the morning. Fredo said they would open for me, and that it was an emergency. So I got up and wrapped myself in my lightweight travel blanket.

We all started down the wooden walkway, but I was unsteady on my feet and almost fell down some of the stairs. The groundskeeper then gave me a piggyback ride down the rest of the way to the car. I waited in the car for Dina, one of the drivers, to arrive.

Everyone was looking worried and talking around me, their voices were jumbled, and I slipped in and out of consciousness until the car started moving. Sam was sitting behind me, helping to keep me steady in the front seat that has no seatbelt. Sam speaks English, French, and a good bit of Malagasy, so he came to help translate.

We drove fast all the way up to the clinic, I was walked inside and talked to the nurse, describing my symptoms. I told them to Sam, who wrote them down and spoke to the nurse and Fredo in French. Patricia and Olivia had also come and were standing in the doorway. They took me into the next room and had me lay down on the metallic table since the other room with the large padded table was occupied (I do not know who was there or why, but there were a lot of people in that room).

The nurse prepared something in a syringe and then slowly gave it to me in a vein my right arm. Sam talked to me the whole time, saying I was going to be fine. I think I told him I was okay, but I might have just thought it. My fever was around 39.5 degrees Celcius, which is about 103 degrees Fahrenheit. That explained my slightly delusional state of mind. The injection took about 3 minutes to give; the whole time, a large gauge needle was in my arm, and the liquid entering my vein was cold. I remember seeing Mami, one of the Simus lemur guides; however, I don’t know if he was actually there or if I hallucinated it.

The nurse said I would have to come back every day for the next four days to get another injection. I was also not allowed to do any strenuous activity over the next four days. We returned to camp, and I was able to walk up the stairs to bed. I was feeling better by the time I returned to my tent. One medication in the syringe must have been some kind of steroid to have gotten my fever under control so quickly.

I slept a lot for the next few days and helped the reforestation training and training Sam on data entry. I was able to go out on Friday, but I did not do much, I took it easy, and when we were finished, I waited for the van to come and get me rather than walk back to KAFS. I slept almost until noon yesterday and until 9 today.