Last night I made it back to Georgia, exhausted but in one piece. My sister picked me up from the Atlanta airport, and I will be here for a few days until my parents can come get me on Wednesday to take me back to Brunswick. I have many, many stories to tell from my 30-hour traveling saga, so be sure to ask me about them when you see me.
Seeing as how I am now back in the US, I suppose that this is my last blog entry. At the moment, I don't have any deep or insightful reflections on my time spent in Cameroon, but hopefully those will come with time. For you Brunswickians, I am told that I will be speaking at my church about my adventures sometime in the coming weeks, if you're interested in hearing more and seeing more pictures.
For the moment, I am just very glad to be back with my family, both blood-related and "extended." With every new experience I gain, I realize how lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life.
Love you all,
Kayce
"Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."
-Isaiah 40:27-31
Monday, April 13, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Malaria
Out of 17 students, of course I would be the one to get malaria. I should have realized as much when my mosquito bites starting leaving scars.
So, a week ago Monday (March 30), the night took a turn for the worse when I became very ill in several different ways. I'll spare you the details. By morning, anyways, I was severely dehydrated and unable to effectively remedy that situation, so I phoned our homestay coordinator and promptly went to the hospital. After waiting (lying on a bench outside) for the doctor to show up for an hour, I was finally taken inside for my consultation.
(From time to time, I'm going to interrupt my narrative to say a few words about Cameroon in general and how my story really isn't that dramatic in the grand scheme of things. Here I'll mention that at least 30 or so Cameroonians were waiting ahead of me at the hospital, but that I'm almost positive I was seen first. As our Academic Director told us during Orientation, Westerners, especially those with white skin, receive many perks here that they do not deserve. I could go on and on about this, but it suffices to say that the doctors probably assumed, because of my skin color, that I could pay for treatment and would be willing to do so. When I briefly left the hospital the next day, to be explained in a moment, at least 30 or 40 Cameroonians were still waiting outside.)
During Orientation, we were assured that an English-speaking doctor would be available wherever we travelled. Throw that one out the window. In the tiny hospital in Ngaoundere, no one spoke any English, so I had to rely on my own (vastly improved, but still ultimately dismal) French skills and the translation supplied by our homestay coordinator, who, as I now know, doesn't know a whole lot about medicine.
When non-natives visit Cameroonian hospitals with symptoms like mine, the doctors generally assume that the patient has malaria, and for good reason - it's incredibly common here. The climate of Cameroon is perfect for mosquitoes. After getting me hooked up to an IV to solve the dehydration problem, the doctors analyzed my blood for the malaria parasite. Sure enough, there it was. That, really, was no surprise - by now, probably everyone in our group has the malaria parasite. The rest of the group hasn't gotten malaria because their anti-malaria medication, which really only keeps the symptoms of the disease at bay instead of preventing it, is apparently working better than mine did. (I took the medication faithfully and, for that matter, slept under my mosquito net faithfully, but I just seemed to have drawn the short straw.) For good measure, the doctors also tested me for typhoid, but that was a negative.
(One of the major differences between American hospitals and Cameroonian hospitals is that, in Cameroon, you are responsible for supplying everything yourself - and I mean everything. The doctors or the orderlies give you a list, and you, or hopefully a proxy, purchases everything before you can be treated. IV bags, needles, all the medication, the little tube that runs from the IV to your arm, etc.)
The hospital in Ngaoundere was small enough that there weren't any real rooms, but only small areas partitioned off by curtains and bookshelves. Also, there were no beds, but only the examining tables that are found in any doctor's office in the U.S. (Believe me, sleeping on one of those things for three days is no picnic.) There aren't any pillows either, but the big kicker was that there were no mosquito nets. Here I am, being treated for malaria in a hospital, and I'm getting bitten by mosquitoes. Irony? Or just a cruel since of humor? Luckily, one of my friends brought me a mosquito net and a pillow within the first few hours, both of which made the experience more tolerable.
(That first night, I asked Bo-Bo, our office manager, about the lack of mosquito nets in the hospital. He sighed, and then his voice showed exasperation as he began a sentence by commenting on the large amounts of money poured into the Ministry of Health.)
On the second day, when it was clear that I still needed more treatment, the news was broken that I would need more money. I had spent all that I had brought the day before, and so now I had to make a trip to the ATM. I would have sent one of my friends, but all of the other students were in class. So, they unhooked me from my IV, I wobbled my way to the car with Nathalie (our homestay coordinator), and the driver took us to the nearest large bank, about 15 minutes away. I returned with money, and they returned the IV to my arm.
(From my parents' reports, this is the detail that, so far anyways, has the most people back home talking. I wasn't really surprised by the situation, but that could be because I've culturally adapted a bit. One of my friends here is an EMT back home and is completing her independent study on emergency medicine in Cameroon. From earlier conversations with her, I had expected to have to pay up front for everything in the hospital. Not very practical for emergencies, I know, but that's how the system works when most of the country can't afford to pay medical bills.)
On this second day, I had many visitors. Some of my friends brought a laptop and all six Star Wars films, so we escaped into a galaxy far, far away for nearly two hours. My homestay parents in Ngaoundere also visited, reinforcing my impression that they were incredibly sweet people. We had difficulty communicating at times, given that French was everyone's second language, but we all got along really well.
I ended up staying in the hospital for one more night (the longest hospital stay of my life thus far, and let's hope that it stays that way) before being released to my homestay on Thursday afternoon. This is the point in the story where the craziness of quinine begins.
As I learned in my Forestry in the Developing World class last semester (shout-out to Professor Lentile), quinine is an alkaloid originally derived from the cinchona tree that has been used to treat malaria for hundreds of years. (Now, like most other drugs discovered in the rain forest, it is synthesized in labs.) What I didn't remember learning about last semester (we very well may have discussed it, though), were the awful, awful side effects. In my experience, at least, quinine can cause:
-headache
-dizziness
-nausea
-ringing in the ears
-loss of balance
-trippy visions and dreams
-fatigue
-extreme mood swings
-loss of appetite.
(Of course, some of that could be attributed to the malaria itself or the antibiotic that I am now taking, but I choose to blame the quinine.)
So, for four days and three nights, I laid in bed in my homestay, wishing that I could click my heels three times and go home. The quinine really was awful. Luckily, I was done taking it on Monday, and by that time we were back in Yaounde, the capital, having taken the overnight train back again.
Since finishing the quinine on Monday, though, I still am not feeling up to par. The quinine takes a few days to work out of your system, for one, and two, I think my body is just plain tired and run-down after the week and a half that it's had. I've spent the vast majority of every day this week either sleeping or laying in bed, and I'm still rather fatigued. The dizziness is almost gone, but it comes back when I stay standing for too long. I feel like I need to sleep for a month. (Well, not really, but I know that I need to rest a lot and take it easy for the next couple of weeks.)
So, with all of this and the realities of life here in Cameroon in mind, I have decided to cut my semester short and head home for the United States. My flight leaves on Saturday (tomorrow), and I will be back in the U.S. on Sunday. I completed three of my four courses here, and so I will receive credit for them, while I will simply withdraw from my Independent Study Project (ISP). I will miss the last four and a half weeks of the program, but I think that I need to get myself home to fully recuperate.
But, to allay all fears, let me point out a few things to try and keep everyone from further freaking out:
1) I am posting this ridiculously long blog, so I am indeed well enough to lay in bed and type (I'm currently staying at the SIT office, which has wireless internet.)
2) I feel confident in my abiliities to travel internationally alone, so I must be doing pretty ok.
Yes, I'm exhausted, and yes, I'm going to visit a doctor almost as soon as I get back, but I'm going to be fine. Please don't worry.
Oh, and please stop telling my parents that malaria stays in your blood forever. 1) That's not what they need to hear right now, and 2) in the case of the strand of malaria most common in Cameroon, it's not true. I could find a CDC webpage to prove it to you, but I'm going to ask you to trust me on this one.
Finally, a big thank-you goes to my parents, who kept me sane throughout this period by phoning me three times a day and running up an extremely large phone bill in the process.
Love you all,
Kayce
P.S. Instead of worrying about me, worry about the up to half a billion other people that contract malaria every year, most of whom live in the developing world. Malaria is easily treated, but only if you have the resources.
So, a week ago Monday (March 30), the night took a turn for the worse when I became very ill in several different ways. I'll spare you the details. By morning, anyways, I was severely dehydrated and unable to effectively remedy that situation, so I phoned our homestay coordinator and promptly went to the hospital. After waiting (lying on a bench outside) for the doctor to show up for an hour, I was finally taken inside for my consultation.
(From time to time, I'm going to interrupt my narrative to say a few words about Cameroon in general and how my story really isn't that dramatic in the grand scheme of things. Here I'll mention that at least 30 or so Cameroonians were waiting ahead of me at the hospital, but that I'm almost positive I was seen first. As our Academic Director told us during Orientation, Westerners, especially those with white skin, receive many perks here that they do not deserve. I could go on and on about this, but it suffices to say that the doctors probably assumed, because of my skin color, that I could pay for treatment and would be willing to do so. When I briefly left the hospital the next day, to be explained in a moment, at least 30 or 40 Cameroonians were still waiting outside.)
During Orientation, we were assured that an English-speaking doctor would be available wherever we travelled. Throw that one out the window. In the tiny hospital in Ngaoundere, no one spoke any English, so I had to rely on my own (vastly improved, but still ultimately dismal) French skills and the translation supplied by our homestay coordinator, who, as I now know, doesn't know a whole lot about medicine.
When non-natives visit Cameroonian hospitals with symptoms like mine, the doctors generally assume that the patient has malaria, and for good reason - it's incredibly common here. The climate of Cameroon is perfect for mosquitoes. After getting me hooked up to an IV to solve the dehydration problem, the doctors analyzed my blood for the malaria parasite. Sure enough, there it was. That, really, was no surprise - by now, probably everyone in our group has the malaria parasite. The rest of the group hasn't gotten malaria because their anti-malaria medication, which really only keeps the symptoms of the disease at bay instead of preventing it, is apparently working better than mine did. (I took the medication faithfully and, for that matter, slept under my mosquito net faithfully, but I just seemed to have drawn the short straw.) For good measure, the doctors also tested me for typhoid, but that was a negative.
(One of the major differences between American hospitals and Cameroonian hospitals is that, in Cameroon, you are responsible for supplying everything yourself - and I mean everything. The doctors or the orderlies give you a list, and you, or hopefully a proxy, purchases everything before you can be treated. IV bags, needles, all the medication, the little tube that runs from the IV to your arm, etc.)
The hospital in Ngaoundere was small enough that there weren't any real rooms, but only small areas partitioned off by curtains and bookshelves. Also, there were no beds, but only the examining tables that are found in any doctor's office in the U.S. (Believe me, sleeping on one of those things for three days is no picnic.) There aren't any pillows either, but the big kicker was that there were no mosquito nets. Here I am, being treated for malaria in a hospital, and I'm getting bitten by mosquitoes. Irony? Or just a cruel since of humor? Luckily, one of my friends brought me a mosquito net and a pillow within the first few hours, both of which made the experience more tolerable.
(That first night, I asked Bo-Bo, our office manager, about the lack of mosquito nets in the hospital. He sighed, and then his voice showed exasperation as he began a sentence by commenting on the large amounts of money poured into the Ministry of Health.)
On the second day, when it was clear that I still needed more treatment, the news was broken that I would need more money. I had spent all that I had brought the day before, and so now I had to make a trip to the ATM. I would have sent one of my friends, but all of the other students were in class. So, they unhooked me from my IV, I wobbled my way to the car with Nathalie (our homestay coordinator), and the driver took us to the nearest large bank, about 15 minutes away. I returned with money, and they returned the IV to my arm.
(From my parents' reports, this is the detail that, so far anyways, has the most people back home talking. I wasn't really surprised by the situation, but that could be because I've culturally adapted a bit. One of my friends here is an EMT back home and is completing her independent study on emergency medicine in Cameroon. From earlier conversations with her, I had expected to have to pay up front for everything in the hospital. Not very practical for emergencies, I know, but that's how the system works when most of the country can't afford to pay medical bills.)
On this second day, I had many visitors. Some of my friends brought a laptop and all six Star Wars films, so we escaped into a galaxy far, far away for nearly two hours. My homestay parents in Ngaoundere also visited, reinforcing my impression that they were incredibly sweet people. We had difficulty communicating at times, given that French was everyone's second language, but we all got along really well.
I ended up staying in the hospital for one more night (the longest hospital stay of my life thus far, and let's hope that it stays that way) before being released to my homestay on Thursday afternoon. This is the point in the story where the craziness of quinine begins.
As I learned in my Forestry in the Developing World class last semester (shout-out to Professor Lentile), quinine is an alkaloid originally derived from the cinchona tree that has been used to treat malaria for hundreds of years. (Now, like most other drugs discovered in the rain forest, it is synthesized in labs.) What I didn't remember learning about last semester (we very well may have discussed it, though), were the awful, awful side effects. In my experience, at least, quinine can cause:
-headache
-dizziness
-nausea
-ringing in the ears
-loss of balance
-trippy visions and dreams
-fatigue
-extreme mood swings
-loss of appetite.
(Of course, some of that could be attributed to the malaria itself or the antibiotic that I am now taking, but I choose to blame the quinine.)
So, for four days and three nights, I laid in bed in my homestay, wishing that I could click my heels three times and go home. The quinine really was awful. Luckily, I was done taking it on Monday, and by that time we were back in Yaounde, the capital, having taken the overnight train back again.
Since finishing the quinine on Monday, though, I still am not feeling up to par. The quinine takes a few days to work out of your system, for one, and two, I think my body is just plain tired and run-down after the week and a half that it's had. I've spent the vast majority of every day this week either sleeping or laying in bed, and I'm still rather fatigued. The dizziness is almost gone, but it comes back when I stay standing for too long. I feel like I need to sleep for a month. (Well, not really, but I know that I need to rest a lot and take it easy for the next couple of weeks.)
So, with all of this and the realities of life here in Cameroon in mind, I have decided to cut my semester short and head home for the United States. My flight leaves on Saturday (tomorrow), and I will be back in the U.S. on Sunday. I completed three of my four courses here, and so I will receive credit for them, while I will simply withdraw from my Independent Study Project (ISP). I will miss the last four and a half weeks of the program, but I think that I need to get myself home to fully recuperate.
But, to allay all fears, let me point out a few things to try and keep everyone from further freaking out:
1) I am posting this ridiculously long blog, so I am indeed well enough to lay in bed and type (I'm currently staying at the SIT office, which has wireless internet.)
2) I feel confident in my abiliities to travel internationally alone, so I must be doing pretty ok.
Yes, I'm exhausted, and yes, I'm going to visit a doctor almost as soon as I get back, but I'm going to be fine. Please don't worry.
Oh, and please stop telling my parents that malaria stays in your blood forever. 1) That's not what they need to hear right now, and 2) in the case of the strand of malaria most common in Cameroon, it's not true. I could find a CDC webpage to prove it to you, but I'm going to ask you to trust me on this one.
Finally, a big thank-you goes to my parents, who kept me sane throughout this period by phoning me three times a day and running up an extremely large phone bill in the process.
Love you all,
Kayce
P.S. Instead of worrying about me, worry about the up to half a billion other people that contract malaria every year, most of whom live in the developing world. Malaria is easily treated, but only if you have the resources.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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