Dengue Fever

Originally uploaded by m_hagen

The call to prayer at the mosque across the street let me know dawn was not far off. I hadn't slept all night, racked with body aches and sweating like crazy. I knew right away that morning I was in trouble.... The moaning call to prayer actually sounded almost as shitty as I felt. As soon as I heard some life waking up downstairs I grabbed the railing to the stairs and made my way down to let Mama know I wasn't well. A'an from the Losmen drove me straight to the hospital. The two main buildings were shut down from the recent earthquakes so the reception had moved into one of the smaller buildings. The nurse unwrapped a sterile needle, they took some blood, and told me to come back later. A'an took me back to the Baroqah Losmen where I lay down, alternating between sweating and shivering in the 90 degree heat of the afternoon. I didn't take any meds since I didn't know what I had at this point. It was a very long and painful afternoon at the hotel. Later that evening, A'an drove me back over to the hospital. After waiting a few minutes for Dr. Leo to finish playing badminton, he came over to give me his initial diagnosis of Malaria. Wasn't too happy to hear that.... He said hopefully it's not Falciparum which people can die from. Um yeah, I said let's hope it's not that. You might not be able to play much badminton the next couple of weeks if it is. Back into the emergency room so they could draw more blood for more tests and then they hooked me up to the damn IV drip. They laid me down in a room an hour later at about 11 pm after giving me a Panadol for the pain and fever. Great! Give me some damn morphine!!!