I am gradually approaching the end of my year term here and I realized that I forgot to write about 2 of my most fantastical stories from my experience here in the Hondu. So here goes one.
In October, I woke up one morning feeling like a train had hit me. My body ached and I felt exhausted and there was a grumble in my tummy. Thinking it was probably another instance of Honduran fury (see past post for an explanation…) I decided to go to school and wait it out (it is really hard to miss days at school; we don’t have substitutes). I made it through the day, but by the end of the day, I had this headache behind my eyes that felt like my brain was going to pop out through my eyeballs, and my joints ached something fierce.
I went straight to bed when I got home in hopes that I could sleep it off. The next morning I woke up and I felt even worse. I had diarrhea all night, and serious chills. I decided it was time to go see the doctor that lives across the street (he gives us free consults). I called him up and he said, come outside. I slowly moved myself downstairs and met him in the parking lot. He asked my symptoms, looked at my throat, checked my glands, touched my back and then he punched me in the kidneys. I screamed in agony, felt so dizzy that I was going to fall over and instantly vomited. He replied, “yep, you have malaria.”
MALARIA?!! Images raced through my mind of refugee camps in Africa, and the ebola virus, and flesh-eating bacteria. I knew nothing about malaria, except that mosquitos gave it to me, that it was bad news, and that there wasn’t supposed to be malaria in Honduras. I sat down on the steps with my head in my hands trying to stop the world from spinning in my intense fit of nausea, and then I asked, “what do I do? Is it treatable? Etc.” The doctor didn’t seem too worried. He said it wasn’t a problem and I just needed to take some pills. This is the same doctor who had just punched me in the kidneys and made me vomit, though, so I felt my trust in him waning a bit.
He sent me to his “clinic” across the street to get a blood test from the nurse to confirm, but he was pretty sure. She drew my blood and I peed in a small recycled baby-food jar… sterile of course. He wanted to rule out a kidney infection. Then I hobbled back across the street to our apartments. I started walking up the stairs, but my strength left me completely. Malaria is marked by these episodes when the parasites get super active breeding and it freaks your body out, giving you really intense chills and fevers. As I was walking up the stairs it overtook me and I felt like I was going to pass out. I laid down on the stairs to regain my strength and was wishing that someone was around, but all of the other gringos were at school. I waited it out and laid down for 5 minutes and got back up and tried again. My legs felt like jelly, but I made it up to the metal gate and fumbled with my keys, needing to lay down one more time.
On attempt #3, I got into our apartment and laid on the couch and called the director, to see if she could go across the street to get my test results. She came home from school and brought the nurse over. The nurse gave me a really painful shot in my booty and some anti-nausea meds and I slept for 2 hours. When I woke up, I felt a bit better (the pain meds from the shot kicked in) and I started doing internet research, to try and figure out what the hell was going on. It turned out that the doctor was correct, that the type of malaria I had was totally treatable and not life-threatening. In my search, though, I was looking up the medication that he gave me, and I discovered that the medication is banned in the US for causing inner ear damage and kidney damage. Shit.
I decided that I was freaked out by this doctor experience and I wanted to go to a real hospital in San P. Andrea, our program administrator said, lets go for it. I hobbled down to the bus-station and waited for a chicken bus. We rode into town, on the sweaty bus and got to a beautiful hospital! I went into the ER, told them the sitch and they sent me to the lab to get tests. The lab peeps were super nice, very efficient, I got my results in an hour and they confirmed that I had malaria. They told me the meds I needed to take (no prescription needed), and they sent me to the pharmacy across the street. They didn’t charge me an intake fee, a consult fee, the only thing that they charged me was $20 for the blood test! In and out in 2 hours. Can you imagine what my experience would be like in the states? I have never been in an ED for less than 6 hours at a time. And the price for uninsured care? I don’t even want to think about it.
Feeling happy about our efficient and positive experience at the hospital, we hailed a cab to go back to the Cof. We found one and were halfway home (it was now 6pm) when we came upon a line of cars that was stopped for as far as we could see ahead. Apparently there was a huge accident ahead of us. On the tail end of the longest day of my life, one in which I got punched in the kidneys, vomited in a parking lot and collapsed on my stairs, this traffic was the LAST GODDAMNED STRAW. We waited in it as it stopped as Honduran assholes maneuvered around eachother going nowhere. People were creating lanes on hillsides and there were three cars across going in one direction on a one-lane highway.
Soon we discovered the problem. Cars, in their attempts to maneuver around one another had gotten stopped on the wrong side of the highway, and were facing one another 3 lanes across on both sides of the crash, boxing one another in with literally nowhere for any car to move for miles. Cars facing one another, for miles. Only in Honduras… We were now trapped and couldn’t even turn around. We sat stopped for 3 hours, getting nervous as it was getting very late and people were all out of their cars walking toward their destinations. Our car was surrounded with people on foot
Knowing that we aren’t supposed to be out after dark, feeling like sitting ducks for robbery, we slinked down in our seats, trying to remain low-profile. It felt like I was in a zombie movie. After a full 5 hours in that taxi, some geniuses finally figured out how to untangle the jigsaw a bit to at least get cars moving in some direction, but our taxi driver had had it. He said he was turning around to go back to San Pedro. Without any other option, we headed back to San Pedro and found a hotel. A day that started with a punch in the kidney that provoked spontaneous vomiting and ended at 1130 with me resting my achey malaria ridden body on the comfiest sheets I had ever felt.
I slept for 10 hours that night and made my way back to Cof for 5 days of recuperation and then back at ‘em at school. I should have taken 2 weeks… But there are a lot of decisions that could have been made that would be more healthier choices than living in Cofradia.
I can say with pride that, after 3 months of intermittent rounds of medication, I am finally malaria-free. Honduras, you took my M card. You bastard.
