Another Illness

If you read through the 3-year blog history, you'll find that illness is just as much a part of the Indonesia experience as anything else.  In the first fifteen years of my professional career, I probably missed two weeks of work due to illness.  In the three years I've lived in Indonesia I have missed nearly a month.  We're sick more often, and with harsher illness.  Last week was yet another example.

When I arrived home from work on Monday, I told my wife I felt "odd".  My skin felt raw and I was warmer than usual.  Thirty minutes later I was shaking with chills and skipping dinner.  Ninety minutes later, after the kids are in bed, I'm curled up in a ball on the couch burning with a 102 (39) degree fever and trying to stay warm with a blanket.  Medicine isn't bringing my fever down.

I fell asleep at 10 PM.  My wife woke me a few hours later to make me take more medicine.  I was burning up.  I was surprised when she told me I'd been asleep only two hours.  I would have sworn I'd been asleep at least six.  It was a rough night after that.  Between fighting the fever and frequent trips to the bathroom, I hardly slept.

At  8 AM the next morning, after all the kids were at school, I went to the medical clinic.  I was able to see a doctor within twenty minutes.  She took my vitals, asked my symptoms, and walked me to the ER.  I spent the next several hours in the ER hooked up to an IV under observation while they ran some tests.  They were trying to keep me hydrated and bring down my fever.  They were able to keep me hydrated.

Around noon they gave me my diagnosis:  Amoebic Dysentery.  Ugh.  Same thing my daughter had last year, though our symptoms were slightly different.  They gave me three different pills, one to kill the amoeba, one to help the issues that pill would cause in my stomach, and a third pill to fight the nausea caused by the other two.  I would be taking 750mg of Flagyl three times a day for the next five days.

The medicine alleviated my symptoms almost immediately.  My fever disappeared within hours, and the other symptoms began to improve.  However, the medicine was brutal.  Flagyl has a list of side effects and I experienced every single one of them.  The worst for me was the headaches and the nausea.  They left me incapacitated and in the fetal position for hours at a time.  I kept trying to play with the kids but did not have the energy to do it.  Being light headed didn't help either.

I stayed home from work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  I went back to work on Friday simply to honor a family rule:  We do what we have to do so we can do what we want to do.  I had a farewell party to attend and was hosting a poker party Friday night.  If I didn't go to work, I wasn't going to do either of those events.  Toughest day of work I've had in recent memory.  Several times I doubled over to catch my breath.  I did make it through the day, however, and attended the farewell party and the poker game, though everyone commented I looked very ill.

It's now Tuesday, a week after my trip to the ER.  I took my final dose of Flagyl on Sunday AM and I still have the side effect of a sour taste in my mouth, though it's not as bad as it was yesterday.  For the most part, I feel better, but I'm about 10 pounds (4 kg) lighter and don't have my full energy back yet.  My appetite is slowly returning.

I went back to the medical clinic tonight so they could run more tests to confirm the amoeba is gone.  They said it would take an hour, but realistically I don't expect to hear anything until tomorrow.

The worst part for me is knowing that my daughter went through this.  She's a tough little kid.  She had a lot more energy than I did!