Friday, 6th April 2007

In Lilongwe

I think I may have had the worst night of my entire life last night. It’s possible that I’ve had a worse one, but I don’t remember it.

Despite taking panadols, my head was not just achy. It was BANGING. Half the night I was sweating and couldn’t get cool enough. I didn’t think it was fever, I just thought it was hot outside. The other half the night, I was absolutely freezing and literally shivering. Tried doubling up the blanket to get more warmth, but the effort and movement involved in doubling the blanket made my head bang more.

When the sun finally came up, I thought, “I have got to see Elaine.” But the thought of getting up to go find her was nearly unthinkable. A few times, I’d move my leg a few centimeters and then stop again, just lying there. Finally, I thought, “I HAVE to go see Elaine, before they all leave!” I managed to swing my legs to the floor and walk, slowly, over to where Elaine was sleeping. All I could think was, “Please, please, please help me. Take me to a clinic if you need to. Do whatever. Just help. Please.” I know that is a pathetic way to think, but it’s all I could think. Elaine was very soothing and gave me 2 strong pills to help the headache.

I went back and lay down. The pills didn’t work. Not even a teansy, teansy bit. I don’t care how strong they were. They didn’t work. After about 30 minutes, I called out for the help of anybody who could hear my voice. "Hello?" I said. "Hello?"

Jack heard and came. Very nicely, he said, "Yes, Leigh Anne. It's me, Jack." I remember his voice through the tent wall because it was so caring sounding.

I asked him to please let Elaine know where I was. Not much later, Elaine came by. She talked to me gently, gave me 2 more pills, but told me not to take them for a while. She told me that I should really go to a clinic today.

I felt desperate. I didn’t have the strength to help myself. The effort of opening my eyes was painful. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get up, organize a taxi, do whatever needs to be done, get to a clinic, explain the problem. I knew I couldn’t do that. Nimia, whom I had spent the day with yesterday, had gone up north to visit her mother-in-law.

I thought of another very good old friend, Martha Manda from Dowa. Martha had been a very good friend, she even named a child after me. The problem was that she doesn’t have a phone. The only thing I knew was that her husband works for Action Aide in Dowa. I asked Elaine. “Can you go find my friend, Martha, in Dowa, and bring her? She’ll take care of things. She’ll come. I know it.”

Elaine said, “We can’t do that. We have a border crossing today. We are about to leave. You need to go to a clinic.”

I felt a bit betrayed. I paid for this entire TDA trip, all the way to S. Africa. It is true that I was leaving here, in Lilongwe. But we were still together, they hadn’t left yet, and I was all paid up. I was sick. I needed help. Couldn’t they see that?

“She doesn’t understand,” I thought to myself. Out loud I said, “Can you please try to contact Martha’s husband? He works at Action Aide. When you tell him, I know Martha will come.” Martha is poor. She probably wouldn’t even have the transport money to come to Lilongwe. But if she heard that her old friend was asking for her, she’d scrounge around at her neighbors, get the money, and be here by early afternoon. I was 1,000% sure of that. And then … I’d be saved. She could take care of everything, get me to a clinic, whatever. I know that sounds dramatic, but that’s how I was thinking.

But Elaine said, in her gentlist of voices, “I’m sorry, we can’t call. We are going. Thor already has the engine running. I’ll ask the owners of this camp to check in on you in a few hours.”

I said, “O.k., thank you.” She left. Everybody left.

The next couple of hours are somewhat of a haze, but I remember lying there with tears for part of it. I honest to God thought I was going to die. I started thinking about my life and thinking that it had been a pretty good one, but I wish it didn’t have to end like this. I wondered things like, who is going to tell my family? Nobody even knows me at this camp. If I could get to a clinic, I might stand a chance, but I can’t get to a clinic. I remember taking the other pills that Elaine had left, thinking: if this reduces the pain, which was also now nausea, just enough, then maybe I’d be able to get there on my own.

The pills didn’t work.

Once, when I was sure I was going to throw up, I did manage to come down from the bed and crawl out of the big huge tent I was in and heave in the grass. It was mainly dry heaves though, with very little “stuff”. I then lay down there in the grass, with my feet halfway in the tent, because of not enough energy to turn around and get back in the tent. After I’m not sure how long, I felt my head was on fire from heat (the sun), so I wiggled myself around and now my head was lying inside the tent and the rest of me was outside. Don’t know how long I lay like that. I could hear voices in the distance and thought, “Oh, please, somebody, call a doctor.”

Then, I was sure I was going to diarrhea. I lifted my head slightly and opened my blurry eyes. The bathrooms and toilet stalls were about 50 meters away. I stood up barely and started walking toward the stalls. The stalls were very blurry and I was delirious and weaving. I got there. One was occupied. There were only two. I remember looking in the second one and thinking, “Oh, thank god there’s toilet paper. I don’t have time to wait for this other one.” But I was *very* delirious. I remember thinking, “Please, God, let me make it to the seat. Then I’ll be o.k.” That’s the last thing I remember for a while.

When I woke up, two very kindly looking Malawian women were putting their cool, damp hands on my forehead and face. Two angels from heaven. I was lying on the bathroom floor. The concrete floor was also cool. I remember thinking, “This feels nice. I’ll just stay here a bit.” But then I noticed that in the process of however I got down there to the floor, I’d also spoiled myself with diarrhea. My honest to god first thought was, “I don’t care. I’ll just lie here in my mess. It’s o.k.” But then I thought, “No, I should try to go sit on that toilet.”

I said, “I have to go to the toilet.” I tried to get up, but failed. The ladies pulled me up, sat me down, and closed the door. A couple more bouts of diarrhea later, and then I realized I had to vomit. I asked for a bucket. I could hear them out there, scurrying, trying to get a bucket, but they weren’t scurrying fast enough.

About 5 seconds later, I asked again, “Is there a bucket?”

One of the ladies said, “It’s coming.” More scurrying. But it didn’t come fast enough. Now, in addition to my soiled underwear, there was barf all over the bathroom stall floor.

To make a long story short (well, I haven’t made it very short, have I?), the owner of the camp, named Janey, was called for help. When I finally cleaned myself up as much as possible and took off my underwear (my shorts were almost o.k., so I just wore them without the underwear), and came out of the stall, Janey was there. She asked when I started feeling sick, etc, and then she and her husband, Tom, drove me to a clinic.

Janey is my hero. She didn’t even know me. But she stayed there with me, at the clinic, calling me “honey” and “dear” and making me feel almost o.k. Dr. Huber examined me. He asked me if I felt feverish. I said, “No. Just headache and body ache, all over.” He took my temperature. I had a temperature of 39.3. I don’t know what that is in farenheit, but apparently it’s high because he said, “You DON’T feel feverish? You have a temp of 39.3!” He took a blood slide and exclaimed, “Oh my god, this is exciting! I’ve never seen so many parasites!” I lifted my head from his desk and asked, “What is it?” He said, “Malaria 4+. Very deadly. I can't believe you've been walking around the last 2 days with this stuff.” He went and discussed it with Janey, who I guess was acting on my behalf, and they decided that I should be admitted. I was also dehydrated and needed a drip.

I had a vague thought of, “Admit?! This is going to cost a lot of money.” But my main thought was, “I don’t care. Admit me! Admit me! Save me!”

Dr. Huber’s wife came and took me to my room. This was a very small clinic and nobody was on duty because it is Easter Friday, so Dr. Huber and his wife comprised the entire staff. Several injections for malaria, nausea, and general headaches later, plus the needle in my arm for the drip, and I was lying there in the bed, almost comfortable, for the first time since last night. Mrs. Huber asked, “Is there anything else you need now?” I smiled coherently and said, “I think I’m o.k.” She left and I dozed. When I woke up a few hours later, I noticed that my headache was only barely there.

I slept most of the rest of the day, except for every once in a while when Dr. Huber would come in and give me some injection or change my drip package. By evening, I was feeling much, much better. Even sat up and ate some cup-o-soup and bread. Janey came by to check on me and bring me a few things that she’d found among my stuff. Mainly, my phone. That was sure nice of her, she must have rummaged through a lot of stuff to find that phone – it wasn’t in an obvious place. When she came by, she remarked, “Wow, what an amazing improvement! Six hours ago, you looked at death’s door.”

I said, “I know! I feel much better!” and smiled. I still had a headache and felt nauseous, but the difference between how I felt now and how I’d felt in the morning was like night and day.

Then, despite sleeping most of the day, I managed to sleep all night. For several hours during the night, I was feverish and sweating and my sheets got all wet. My headache came back in full force, but then I took some of the “miracle pills” that Dr. Huber had given me and the headache subsided. The sweats also eventually subsided and I slept again.