Parasites, tapeworms, and germs, oh my!

Well, it finally happened. I knew it probably would eventually, and considering we’ve been here 6 months before it hit, that’s pretty good. I got Malaria. 

Fortunately I didn’t die from it, as most white missionaries did when they first arrived in Ghana 400 years ago. But! I thought I was going to.

Malaria is kind of funny here, if you’re an adult it’s really not so dangerous because there are very good medicines to treat it. As soon as local people start feeling flu like symptoms they start taking a malaria treatment and the symptoms clear up quickly. But Malaria can be really scary in little kids, so as soon as the children get a fever or throw up or have a headache, everyone rushes them to a clinic for a malaria test. I think part of the reason is because even though I felt miserable while I had it, I could force myself to still eat and drink to keep up my strength. But little kids usually give in to the nausea and lack of appetite they feel and soon they get dehydrated and you have to nourish them with an IV drip just to get them strong enough to take the medicine. Everyone here knows several horror stories of kids who died quickly of malaria, or became deaf from it or something, so if kids are sick at all everyone gives them malaria treatments (even if the malaria test says they don’t have it, people are afraid the test is inaccurate).

As far as my experience with it, I thought I was going to die. It’s a horrible combination of nausea, headache, and feeling weak, so you just want to lie down and not move. Time also seems to sloooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwww doooooooooooown so you think you’ve been miserable forever and will continue to be miserable forever. And all food make you want to throw up even more, so just sitting at the table seems like hard work, let alone muscling down a few bites. At least the medicine works quickly, I started feeling better a few hours after I started taking it. Then had just a couple of days of not feeling too strong, and then I was back to my normal self.

Malaria is caused by little parasites that mosquitos pass around, so it tends to lurk in your blood stream, waiting for your immune system to be weakened. In my case, I had another attack of intestinal parasites that dehydrated me pretty good, making room for the malaria. I guess I have to be serious about treating tapeworms too, not just be grossed out by the fact that people here get them (self included). And of course, there’s lots of other germs being passed around for good measure: cholera, chicken pox, staph infections, elephantitis…normal epidemics. We aren’t affected by many of them because we don’t eat at the roadside stands or from the street hawkers (usually). In the clinics they have posters up about washing hands and only buying from the roadside if the food is hot. Course, as soon as you buy the food you wait for it to cool…

Fortunately the kids have not been sick with malaria at all! They had a lot on funny flu bugs these past few months, but have been very healthy lately. When we were going through those fevers and flus the local church members said that’s called the “African Baptism!” They seemed so cheerful about it, hopefully it means now we’ve got an extra layer of protection against future sickness.    

I'm sorry there are no pictures again! I did actually take some, but our internet connection doesn't really let me upload them. I'll try again soon!