All in the Timing (written 8.10.09)

My boyfriend is on vacation on a boat, unreachable. Both of my Peace Corps doctors are in the U.S., leaving behind a substitute I’ve never met. Three of my best friends from the states are visiting me in my site, scheduled to leave in less than 2 full days. There could not have been a worse time to get sick.

Enter gut-wrenching, appendicitis resembling intestinal bacteria.

It started in my community Thursday afternoon as we (me and the U.S. friends) were walking back to my house from visiting the other end of the community. A terrible pain in my stomach, unaccompanied by nausea or a real need to go to the bathroom, that had me doubled over by the time we made it to my house. Luckily, I had one remaining dose of “Spasmosan” ( just as incredible as it sounds – you can really get anything over the counter here), a disgusting yellow liquid laced with barbituates that allowed me a few hours of fretful sleep. Little did I know how much I was going to need that beauty rest.

When I woke, it felt a little better, but probably only because I started pounding anti-inflammatories right away. The next day, on our way down to the capital, I called the substitute doctor, asking her to leave me some form of medication in the office before she left for the day. Even though I wasn’t able to get to the office until 7, she insisted on waiting for me to do an exam – just in case.

After pressing on my stomach and asking a few questions, the sub-doc deemed it necessary to take me to the hospital right away because she was more than a little concerned that it was my appendix. Happy day, and great timing! So me and the friends loaded up our backpacks into her sedan and trucked it over to the hospital, where the real saga began.

I immediately had my blood drawn, a sonogram which supposedly showed appendix inflammation, and my stomach palpitated by 4 male doctors in a less than private setting in the ER. This is a very touchy culture, and although they mean well, their form of comfort (joking around, patting my leg, foot, smiling at my tears, etc.) just served to make me more hysterical when they each reported “yep, looks like you’ll be in surgery tomorrow morning”. One doctor even went as far as to say “I would send you right away, but I want to do a CT scan first”. Yes! I wanted to scream. Do 8 CT scans first! I’m not having surgery in the developing world when my boyfriend and doctors aren’t even in the country!

For some odd reason, they found it appropriate to put me on an IV before they had finished carting me around the hospital, so by the time I got through with the CT scan (if you’ve ever had one of those, they give you an injection of some hot, paralyzing liquid that makes you feel like you’re peeing your pants – I really hope that’s not just a DR hospital perk) and got up to my room, my hand had already begun the epic swelling that was to be the bane of my existence over the next 4 days.

When they finally sent me to my room, I immediately had to be returned to the CT scan room, but at least the news was encouraging: it seemed to be my intestine that was inflamed as opposed to the appendix, so no surgery for now. Yay! I would have clapped had I been able to feel the fingers on my left hand.

So my new struggles were their absolute refusal to let me consume anything, even water, for the next day and a half, just in case I had to be sent into surgery. And, of course, the over-sassy, under-trained nurses that I have heard so much about from other volunteers who have had the fortune to spend a few days in “our country’s best medical facility”. Between the blood tests at 5:00 am, the staff’s insistence that the hospital didn’t have any blankets, and the rolling of eyes when I asked for my IV to be switched to a spot on my body that didn’t resemble the Michelin man, I felt so angry and disempowered that I nearly took the IV out myself. If it hadn’t been for my dear, dear friends, so dedicated to me that they actually slept IN my hospital room on the faux-leather couch and cold tile floor, I would have gone straight from the intensive care unit to the mental health ward. They even changed their flights to stay and make sure I wouldn’t have to go into surgery alone. I felt so lucky and loved, and able to control my would-be homicidal outlashings at the RNs from Hades.

When I was finally allowed to consume liquids, squash soup has never tasted so good. In fact, up to this point, I had done everything I could to avoid it. My final night I was allowed some mashed potatoes, and I almost cried a little. By then, they had basically determined that what I had must be a bacteria – the blood samples showed no risk of infection in the appendix, and an unnecessary number of stool samples ruled out any chance of parasites. They put me on antibiotics and sent me on my merry way, and since I actually made it out alive and feel fine now, my best guess is that they were right in the end.

All of that could have been avoided if I had just gone to the pharmacy and bought some super-strong antibiotics. So what have I learned from this experience? When you’re in the developing world, where everything is OTC…self-medicate!!!*

(*The author wishes to express that this is a joke, and that those who care about her should not fear that her ignorance will negatively effect her health in future potentially critical situations.)