Thursday, September 8, 2011

Column No. 38 - My Two Hours with Malaria

My two hours with malaria
By David Krueger

There are two events I’ve wanted to write about but haven’t gotten around to yet because of the stories about Tiwai Island and the Sierra Leone-Egypt football game. The next two columns will be about two occasions that happened last week.

I suppose the first one could serve as the epilogue for the Tiwai Trilogy.

When I got back to Freetown I was really sick. I spent most of Monday lying in bed until I was ordered by a couple of friends to go get a malaria test. I should have immediately known that it was not going to be a simple experience.

The first clinic a friend took me to was closed. We hurried up the road and managed to get into another one as the staff was preparing to go home. I felt bad for keeping them at work longer than they were supposed to be, but my friend was adamant I needed a test done, and told them that.

Unfortunately, because the clinic was closing, they wouldn’t have the results until the next day.

“That’s fine,” I thought. I was pretty sure I didn’t have malaria because I felt a lot better after getting some sleep and taking some medicine I brought from America to lower my temperature.

Tuesday was Pray Day, a national holiday where not many businesses in Freetown were open. The clinic was among those offices that were closed.

“That’s fine,” I thought again. I felt even better on Tuesday and was even more confident I didn’t have malaria. I decided I would stop by the clinic on the way to work on Wednesday to get my results.

It turned out the next morning would not be that simple. I arrived at the clinic a little before 10 a.m. and asked about my test results. They had taken them to the YMCA (the address I put on my form), which wasn’t very far from the clinic.

I wandered over to the YMCA to see if they had the results. They didn’t. My friend had picked them up and he wasn’t around. I called him to see if he was close.

“Yes, yes, I’m coming,” my friend said over the phone. “You have malaria. Yeah. I’m coming.”

My heart sunk. I felt very sad and exceptionally angry at the same time. I didn’t want malaria. I take medicine every day that’s supposed to help prevent me from getting the disease, and it has some rather unpleasant side effects.

The pills tear my stomach apart, making me feel sick almost as soon as I take it. It also makes me more susceptible to sunburns, which is something that my pale skin needs absolutely no help with.

I also sleep under a mosquito net every night, just like I was instructed. I was confused as to how this could happen, and unsure what to do next.

My friend arrived and we went back to the clinic. He had to depart because he wasn’t feeling very well either. In order to get medicine I had to wait for the doctor to arrive and write a prescription. The only problem was he wasn’t due in the office for another half an hour.

So I went to the Awoko office and dropped my bag off. I informed them of what was going on and I’m pretty sure they could tell by the look on my face that I was having a rather difficult morning.

At 11 I went back to the clinic to see the doctor. I waited for 20 minutes, swearing under my breath and still frustrated that I couldn’t just be at work right now writing about Tiwai Island. Finally, he called me into his office and performed a checkup. Then he asked if I was allergic to medicines with sulfur in them. I had no idea, so I said “probably not.”

You’ll know if you are because you’ll have black spots appear on your skin, he informed me.

That’s awesome, I thought. Is there any medicine I could take that won’t alter the color of my skin?

I didn’t have enough money with me for the two prescriptions he wanted me to take, so I had to go back to the office and walk back to the clinic (for the third time in less than two hours) to pick up my prescription so I could fill it somewhere else. While at the office a coworker told me I should go to another clinic nearby and get it checked out. The doctor is really good I was told.

At this point I figured why not? I was pretty sure I was never going to be done going to clinics and pharmacies. All I really wanted to do was just stay in the office and get to work.

A short time later I was waiting in my second doctor’s office of the morning. I had already had my finger pricked so that the nurse could take some blood for a quick malaria test. By this point I was getting used to those.

However, this time the doctor prescribed cold tabs. No anti-malaria medicine. No black spots. It was just a cold he said.

Happily, I took the prescription and got up to leave. I looked back at the doctor, sitting behind a pile of papers, and couldn’t keep from asking.

“So, uh, I don’t have malaria?” I asked, in an obviously weird tone that mixed confusion and enthusiasm.

“No,” the doctor replied, picking up the malaria test and showing it to me. “Very negative.”

I couldn’t contain my smile as I left the office, right around noon, and went with my coworker to pick up my medicine. That took another half an hour, and then we went to get some lunch because the morning’s events had kept me from eating anything up until that point.

After what seemed like forever, but was really only about three and a half hours, I returned to the Awoko office around 1:30 and was just so happy to be done with doctors and malaria tests.

I quickly thanked God (and apologized for my parade of swear words earlier in the first doctor’s office) and got to work. I was so excited to finally be able to work that I wrote the entire Tiwai Trilogy, and had it edited and ready to go in about two hours.

After work I headed back to the YMCA to tell all my friends the good news. I got to the balcony, with an incredible view overlooking Freetown, and just sat down.

Immediately, they all began to ask me how I was feeling and how the malaria test went.

“Was it positive?” They asked.

I just sat back in my chair and smiled.

“You guys won’t believe the morning I had,” I said.

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