Ever wondered what it's like to go to a hospital in 'the developing world' and exchange information about symptoms and diagnoses in a language that is foreign to you, when you're the one who is sick? Welcome to the past week of my life! Last Wednesday, after taking a brief afternoon nap, I woke up feeling chilled to the bone, so cold that no amount of long sleeve shirts and fleeces could seem to warm me up. I was achey all over, had the beginning of a headache and just was feeling terrible. Trying to shake it off, I got out of bed, but within an hour my body had reversed temperatures and become a small inferno. I spent the night curled up on my concrete floor unable to move, with a pounding headache, sweating buckets. Considering that I had just come from the Amazon about 10 days earlier, my fever immediately and unfortunately raised suspicions of malaria. I slept from 5:30 pm on Wednesday to 6 am on Thursday morning, feeling terrible the whole time.
The next morning the volunteer coordinator accompanied me into town. The ride from the reserve is an hour long, extremely bumpy, over pot-holed volcanic rock roads. For someone with a headache and achey body, it's a complete nightmare. I counted down the seconds until we'd arrive in town, wondering how this whole medical process in a foreign country would work. The volunteer coordinator was there to translate for me, but I still felt a bit uncomfortable knowing that I would not know what information was being relayed back to me that I couldn't understand. At the hospital, we presented my symptoms to a doctor (I spoke in English and the coordinator translated for me) and doctor ordered a blood test. (No one was saying anything but I knew what they both were thinking - malaria.) Because I had eaten that morning, the blood test had to wait until the following day. Though my symptoms were better I still felt pretty terrible - it was hard to walk because of the achey-ness and people kept giving me the How-do-you-feel-because-you-look-terrible look. Another night spent in bed, trying to recooperate, taking fever reducer medicine and drinking Gatorade and water for rehydration. Luckily the fever happened only once, and didn't return again after the episode on Wednesday night.
The morning of the blood test, I woke up at 6 am to look up key words that might be useful during the procedure and translate them into Spanish. Receiving medical treatment while here was certainly something that I realized was a possibility, but I never actually thought I would be getting blood drawn to see if I had malaria. When you travel alone, ultimately there's no one else to take care of you other than yourself. So I decided it was important to be as prepared as I could possibly be. Words like blood, syringe, iodine, antiseptic, insurance, are now permanent parts of my Spanish vocabulary.
The lab where I received my treatment is named 'Laboratorio Angelita.' The front of the building is painted aquamarine green, with the name written in fancy letters above the doorway (the entire entrance is like one big doorway). The lab is directly opposite the hospital, a large ranch style building which is painted sky blue. When I got to the lab I was greeted by a woman who had me sit in the entrance..essentially on the street. The procedure was faster and much more simple than I expected, and than it would ever be in the US. She took out a syringe (new and clean), took a vial of blood, and that was that. No band aid, just a cotton swab and I was finished. Just thirty dollars to test for a slew of things in my blood, and I could have the results on the weekend.
To make this long story a little shorter, I have felt fine since the test, and the official results showed "negativo" for malaria. But, I've decided that my sickness was a blessing in disguise. It provided me with a respite from work, after 6 weeks of hard, manual labor. I spent two days in port, watching the sea lions and reflecting on my experience to this point, I experienced a new, albeit a bit scary, part of traveling, and I tried something new - teaching English! Yesterday while I waited for the lab to open, I met a woman who works in a tour shop next to the 'Angelita'. We got to chatting, and within a few minutes she asked me to teach her some English. I have yet to actually try to give an English lesson here (normally I am too timid) but yesterday my Colgate Writing Center personality kicked into gear and for about 45 minutes I taught some pronunciation, verbs and the meaning of a few English phrases in the shop that the woman did not understand. It was a really cool experience - teaching English while I spoke mostly in Spanish - and I am excited to find other opportunities to do this for the rest of the time while I am here!
What's Next...2 Weeks more in the Galapagos, then back to the Amazon!
After my recent medical mystery, I have unfortunately not worked as many days on the reserve as I would have liked. But I suppose the sickness was a blessing in disguise - it forced me to slow down a bit during what was week 6 of intense manual labor and all sorts of challenges to overcome. At this point, I only have 3 days left of work on the reserve before I head out on a 4-day tour, followed by a week of relax and repose around the islands. Then I head back to the Amazon for a second stint at the reserve there. I've been communicating with the coordinators there about a grant project, so hopefully in addition to all of the usual projects, I will get to spearhead a fundraising effort in my final weeks at the reserve. Drawing confidence from my recent success with grant writing ($1100!) I hope that I will be able to pull something together for Jatun Sacha before I leave Ecuador.
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