Since I seem to have plenty of time on my hands being on med hold in Lilongwe, I thought I'd update you on my current status.
Peace Corps Volunteers take malaria prophylaxis to prevent the malaria parasite from attacking their bodies. In Malawi, we are started off on Mefloquine, moved to Doxycycline (when the violent hallucinations become severe) and switched to Malarone (when you suffer from enough internal chemical burns). At least that was the case for me.
(click on the underlined items to read previous blogs on this matter)
Remember the Mefloquine madness?
And then I was looking dapper with Doxy for a while...
But then malaria struck and it sucked.
When you take Doxy with very little water or fall asleep soon after taking it, it can sit in your esophagus and burn the $#^@ out of it, causing you to be unable to eat for several days. It feels like intense, constant heartburn and varies in intensity thoughout the day and is worse when anything is ingested.
The reason I got malaria was during one of my five major esophageal burns. I took a doxy, went to bed, woke up in the middle of the night with serious pain and after that it was like negative reinforcement - why would I want to take Doxy when my chest hurt so badly? I skipped my doxy for several week - yes, very bad - and sure enough wound up with an even worse fate: malaria.
This week has been the worst esophagitis (inflammation in the esophagus - in my case, caused by chemical burns) I've ever suffered. I like timelines:
Sunday [evening]: Shoot! Forgot to take my doxy! Oh but I'm so tired. No, malaria sucks, I gotta take it! (Doxy popped in, splash of water down the hatch, back to bed)
Monday [early hours of the morning]: Gasp! Oh no, I feel it. I did it again! My chest feels like it's being stabbed repeatedly, breathing is difficult and no position is comfortable. Just gotta wait it out.
Monday: Ate mushy oatmeal. It took over an hour to finish. Couldn't eat the rest of the day.
Tuesday: Mushy oatmeal again but then later ate spaghetti because Robert visited. Yeah, I'm doing ok! But could not eat dinner.
Wednesday: The pain was excruitating. I cried on the floor for 4 hours. Then sat in a bucket and cried some more - a mixture of a low blood sugar attack and pain. Water hurt going down. I was extremely dehydrated. And hungry! Christian came over to make me soup. He made it bland enough to go down and cooked the vegetables until they were mush. It took two hours for me to eat it. I cried some more. Peace Corps Medical Office told me to make milk and sugar. I only had powdered milk which may have been too acidic due to the watery consistency and it took an hour to drink one cup. Cancelled my day, as I could not possibly leave my house in this state.
Thursday: Pain, pain, pain. I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. I could manage nothing else. I just knew I had to keep my blood sugar up. Oh and the thirst! Drinking a glass of water was still an outrageous feat! I found an MRE Strawberry Milkshake...just add water and mix. It was amazing. The military has got it down with pre-packaged, dehydrated foods. It didn't taste too horrible and was loaded with sugar to boost me up and it was milky so it went down so smoothly! Ahh...thanks, cousin Jon for that little slice of heaven! The Peace Corps doctor was around the area and stopped in. He gave me pills to make the swelling in my esophagus go down (swallow pills?!) and offered to take me to Lilongwe that day or the following day, whichever I preferred. I said I'd see how I felt after these pills. He gave me a candy bar to cheer me up. I wept as I tried to eat it. Impossible. It burned. I threw it away. I THREW CHOCOLATE IN THE GARBAGE! I eat M&Ms off the floor after not knowing how long they've been there. But this chocolate made me angry. It represented defeat, so in the trash it went.
Friday: The inflammation pills did nothing overnight. Tired, hungry, defeated by a candy bar, I called the doctor to take me in. He gave me a baby banana which took me nearly three hours to eat. Seriously. I arrived, we talked business, switched to malarone on the spot (I told him I could not possibly take doxy again. And to be honest, I wouldn't if they did not switch me. This was miserable) I went to my room where the lodge promptly told me there was no more room (after Peace Corps made reservations) and I threw a fit - out of rage, hunger, pain, whatever. Thirty minutes later the man said, okay, there is a room. Embarrassed by my low-blood sugar induced behavior, I went straight to bed and proceeded to eat four cups of yogurt. Oh it felt so good going down. Sweet and cool and passed right by my burn without a hitch. I barely flinched and cried zero times! That's the definition of a successful meal. I started feeling brave. I decided to get some soup for dinner. It felt so good to have a full stomach, but now I wanted something delicious. I was greedy. I was foolish. I bought some soup from a take-away restaurant. It was probably too spicy but I couldn't help myself. I devoured the soup, slowly and cautiously with sips of yogurt in between. There were spurts of pain and I cried out loud, but it was too delicious to stop eating.
Saturday [wee hours of the morning - currently]: I awoke to severe pain in my esophagus once again. I also realized I haven't urinated in 24 hours. Was yesterday just a tasty massacre? Defeated again?!
To be continued...
Peace Corps Volunteers take malaria prophylaxis to prevent the malaria parasite from attacking their bodies. In Malawi, we are started off on Mefloquine, moved to Doxycycline (when the violent hallucinations become severe) and switched to Malarone (when you suffer from enough internal chemical burns). At least that was the case for me.
(click on the underlined items to read previous blogs on this matter)
Remember the Mefloquine madness?
And then I was looking dapper with Doxy for a while...
But then malaria struck and it sucked.
When you take Doxy with very little water or fall asleep soon after taking it, it can sit in your esophagus and burn the $#^@ out of it, causing you to be unable to eat for several days. It feels like intense, constant heartburn and varies in intensity thoughout the day and is worse when anything is ingested.
The reason I got malaria was during one of my five major esophageal burns. I took a doxy, went to bed, woke up in the middle of the night with serious pain and after that it was like negative reinforcement - why would I want to take Doxy when my chest hurt so badly? I skipped my doxy for several week - yes, very bad - and sure enough wound up with an even worse fate: malaria.
This week has been the worst esophagitis (inflammation in the esophagus - in my case, caused by chemical burns) I've ever suffered. I like timelines:
Sunday [evening]: Shoot! Forgot to take my doxy! Oh but I'm so tired. No, malaria sucks, I gotta take it! (Doxy popped in, splash of water down the hatch, back to bed)
Monday [early hours of the morning]: Gasp! Oh no, I feel it. I did it again! My chest feels like it's being stabbed repeatedly, breathing is difficult and no position is comfortable. Just gotta wait it out.
Monday: Ate mushy oatmeal. It took over an hour to finish. Couldn't eat the rest of the day.
Tuesday: Mushy oatmeal again but then later ate spaghetti because Robert visited. Yeah, I'm doing ok! But could not eat dinner.
Wednesday: The pain was excruitating. I cried on the floor for 4 hours. Then sat in a bucket and cried some more - a mixture of a low blood sugar attack and pain. Water hurt going down. I was extremely dehydrated. And hungry! Christian came over to make me soup. He made it bland enough to go down and cooked the vegetables until they were mush. It took two hours for me to eat it. I cried some more. Peace Corps Medical Office told me to make milk and sugar. I only had powdered milk which may have been too acidic due to the watery consistency and it took an hour to drink one cup. Cancelled my day, as I could not possibly leave my house in this state.
Thursday: Pain, pain, pain. I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast. I could manage nothing else. I just knew I had to keep my blood sugar up. Oh and the thirst! Drinking a glass of water was still an outrageous feat! I found an MRE Strawberry Milkshake...just add water and mix. It was amazing. The military has got it down with pre-packaged, dehydrated foods. It didn't taste too horrible and was loaded with sugar to boost me up and it was milky so it went down so smoothly! Ahh...thanks, cousin Jon for that little slice of heaven! The Peace Corps doctor was around the area and stopped in. He gave me pills to make the swelling in my esophagus go down (swallow pills?!) and offered to take me to Lilongwe that day or the following day, whichever I preferred. I said I'd see how I felt after these pills. He gave me a candy bar to cheer me up. I wept as I tried to eat it. Impossible. It burned. I threw it away. I THREW CHOCOLATE IN THE GARBAGE! I eat M&Ms off the floor after not knowing how long they've been there. But this chocolate made me angry. It represented defeat, so in the trash it went.
Friday: The inflammation pills did nothing overnight. Tired, hungry, defeated by a candy bar, I called the doctor to take me in. He gave me a baby banana which took me nearly three hours to eat. Seriously. I arrived, we talked business, switched to malarone on the spot (I told him I could not possibly take doxy again. And to be honest, I wouldn't if they did not switch me. This was miserable) I went to my room where the lodge promptly told me there was no more room (after Peace Corps made reservations) and I threw a fit - out of rage, hunger, pain, whatever. Thirty minutes later the man said, okay, there is a room. Embarrassed by my low-blood sugar induced behavior, I went straight to bed and proceeded to eat four cups of yogurt. Oh it felt so good going down. Sweet and cool and passed right by my burn without a hitch. I barely flinched and cried zero times! That's the definition of a successful meal. I started feeling brave. I decided to get some soup for dinner. It felt so good to have a full stomach, but now I wanted something delicious. I was greedy. I was foolish. I bought some soup from a take-away restaurant. It was probably too spicy but I couldn't help myself. I devoured the soup, slowly and cautiously with sips of yogurt in between. There were spurts of pain and I cried out loud, but it was too delicious to stop eating.
Saturday [wee hours of the morning - currently]: I awoke to severe pain in my esophagus once again. I also realized I haven't urinated in 24 hours. Was yesterday just a tasty massacre? Defeated again?!
To be continued...
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