It all started with a few stomach rumbles and what I thought would be an innocent day trip to Arusha (a larger town about an hour and a half away). Little did I know that in the middle of my delicious cup of tea, I would develop chills, a horrible fever, and a host of other symptoms not worth getting into. After taking a bus home two hours after we arrived, I proceeded to sleep for the rest of the day. By Sunday I had a really high fever, was shivering under blankets, and was unable to eat or drink. Anything.
So, on Monday morning, I headed of to St. Joseph's hospital as usual. However, this time I took a taxi (instead of the lovely dala-dala we have as our public transportation), and went straight to the lab to get tested for Malaria. Lovely.
While waiting for the test results, I was put in a private room.
Side note: Malaria testing in Tanzania is as follows:
1. Prick finger
2. Squeeze blood onto a slide with a number marked on it. This number is also written onto their chart of patients.
3. Set slide on the windowsill to dry
4. Dip slide into a succession of dyes
5. Dry slide on window
6. Look through a microscope and count the parasites
Thus, it took some time to get the results. My private room was great by African standards. It had a plastic cover over the bed, a blanket, a chair, and best of all, a western toilet. None of the rooms have pillows or any amenities. Since most patients share a room of the same size with about 7 other people and have to use a squat toilet down the hall, I considered myself lucky.
Another side note: there are no building codes in Tanzania. St Joe's is in the process of building a new wing, which means that they have built and filled the first floor, while they are still constructing the second and third. Conveniently, the first floor contains the delivery rooms and the private rooms.
On the day that I chose the be a patient, they decided to drill holes between the first and second floors. James told me that there were actually chunks of cement falling in the hallway right outside the door. I'm not even going to begin to mention the noise. I just feel bad for the women who have to give birth there.
While I got to enjoy the peace of my private room, I was given oral rehydration salts to help prevent dehydration. They tasted like the ocean. Like all those times you accidentally swallow sea water when you get hit by a wave. Now imagine drinking a liter of it. With the soft background noise of drilling cement behind me. Quite peaceful.
Turns out it is really funny when a white person gets sick. In fact, so many people where amused that they found it appropriate to come into my private room, speak in swahili (even if I knew what they were saying when I was healthy, there was no way I was about to translate in my delirious fever state), and then laugh while saying "pole" (sorry). Let me tell you, white people get sick too.
A few hours after my arrival, we established that my Malaria test was negative, but that I had some intestinal something. Despite the lack of malaria in my finger, the doc thought I might still have it, and put my on a 5 day course of IM anti-malaria treatment. Let me tell you, waking up every morning and getting an injection in your butt for a straight week is not the most pleasant wake up call. I was also given anti-parasite pills and a general antibiotic. After a few more hours of trying to drink the ocean, I went home to get some real rest.
The following morning I had begun to improve (my fever broke)! But I was still really weak. So, we returned to St. Joe's to get my injection and to ask for IV fluids. Some time in the night, they had lost the key to my private room, so I was put in the ward for all the pregnant women waiting to give birth. Fortunately, no babies wanted to come that day, so I got to be by myself. This was when the real fun started. The nurse insisted on using my hand for the IV, which turned out okay, but didn't seem so promising at first. Once it was in (she was happy because it's supposedly easier on white people), she decided to poke holes in the container with my D5/saline. Now, I understand that from a physics principle- the fluid comes in a semi-rigid container and not a soft bag- but let's think about the safety of that for a sec. Now I am in a dusty, dirty room with holes in the supposedly sterile fluid that is flowing directly into my blood. hmmmm.
Fortunately, I avoided that infection, and was left alone for quite some time (most of my "well-wishing" happened the first day). So much time in fact that my IV emptied. Still no one. Luckily, James noticed and turned it off. Another hour. Still no one. Here I am lying in a bed in an empty pre-birth ward with an empty IV. Great. James finally found the French doctor (she's working at St. Joes for 6mo), who came in and was mortified that my IV was still attached. She left muttering something about delinquent nursing staff and infections. Sure enough, the nurse soon followed and detached the empty container. When she started to leave and we asked her to remove the catheter, she calmly replied "what if she needs something else?" Innocent enough. When told that we were going home and thus would need nothing more that day, she explained, "but, she might need something tomorrow!" Yes, in Africa they send people home with catheters in their hands. And you wonder why the rate of infection is high.
To make the rest of this long story short, we convinced her to remove it, got the hell out, and got me home to sleep. Luckily I needed no more services from St. Joes in the following days. I recovered just as rapidly as I got sick, and made it back home alive and well. All in all, what did these hospital ordeals cost me? About $40. Not too bad. Overall, I really loved my time in Africa. I really think that I got to see a perspective of the African medical services that many miss. While it has it's downfalls, they still cured me. And many others. And for a tiny percentage of what it would have cost here. So, life's not all bad, and at least I'm here to tell the tale...
No comments:
Post a Comment