Hope everyone is doing well and in good health.
After almost a week of fever and pains, I finally got my diagnosis on Saturday. It was malaria, as I suspected from the beginning. On Friday, when I last went to the hospital, the students of “community medicine”, or whatever they call whatever it is they are studying, concluded that I had hepatitis.
I got hepatitis when I was 13 and I knew it was not hepatitis this time. The thing with the malaria parasite is that it is a tricky mother fucker who can make its final detection difficult. It has fed people’s whims and superstitious. I ended up having the positive result even though I had no fever at the moment and I had taken medication the night before to ease the pains.
I started taking the malaria treatment that very Saturday. I had to go to another outpatient hospital because the one we had been going would not give me the treatment (even though they had previously said they would). Apparently they had some demographic divisions and depending on where you live you are assigned to a certain hospital.
We went to the one nearest home (Cumanagoto) and were gladly surprised by a good looking facility (recently repaired and painted) and very nice attention. We had been so used to chaotic filth and nasty treatment that for a second we thought we were dreaming or worse.
The young doctor gave us the doses for the weekend and my wife had to go pick up the rest of my treatment on Monday.
Some people say once you start taking the anti-malaria pills, you start seeing and feeling some improvement. In my case, it was even worse. The pains and fever were back even stronger and the stomach became a mess. I was weaker than ever and slept very little. Whatever little sleep became nightmares in a loop.
By Monday, I felt a bit better, went to a lab for more tests, just in case, and got an amazing gift from a veteran doctor who is associated to the language institute I teach for. He deserves all my admiration and respect because this is not the first time he has shown such kindness. He asked my wife to take me to his office to have my stomach and other organs checked. Besides that, he provided a whole vitamins hydration treatment free of charge and left one his nurses in charge of coming to my place to repeat the treatment (which I just got). That really brought me back to life.
Malaria is a bitch. It’s a tough disease, even if there is an effective treatment to make it go. It can get complicated and hurt other organs, especially the liver, kidneys, and spleen. There are plenty of cases in our hospitals (both in my hometown, where I am sure I got infected, and in Cumaná, where I saw lots of young diagnosed patients), combined with other related diseases, such as dengue. I see no prevention program, no fumigations, and no emergency accommodations in hospitals to better take care of the increasing number of patients. But try to find that in the news.
I have to take the pills for 12 more days until I can go back to normal routine. No fats, no citrics, lots of fluids, chicken soup, and rest; that's what they all prescribe to recover from malaria. Hopefully, there won’t be complications.
