Sick

            I’m lying on a yoga mat on the cement floor of the SM hut, watching the ceiling fan whir as it circulates the air in the room. I’m sick. I don’t know what kind of sick, my symptoms don’t match any of the problems that they usually treat people for.

            Yesterday I was on top of a ladder, painting when the world started swaying. I tried sitting down for awhile and drinking water to make the dizziness go away, but it didn’t work. I ended up putting all the painting stuff away; I didn’t really want to be known as the Nassara who fell off the ladder. I managed to suck it up enough to go to market with Naomi and Charis so we could buy supplies for the feast we are going to be serving to the kids at school on Friday, but when we got back I crashed.

            Today I woke up feeling ok, but by 8:30 I was back where I’d started. Charis and Naomi went to market without me, so I could rest. Lying down is the only way I can keep myself from feeling like I’m going to throw up. Even then, it’s a little sketchy.

If I don’t start feeling better by tomorrow I’ll probably go get tested for malaria, just to make sure. I hope I’m not; I’d really like to be able to say I was here longer than a week before I got infected by the little beasties.

Masha just came by. She told us about one of her patients from this morning. A lady came in all by herself with her 5 month old baby. The baby was breathing rapidly, had malaria and anemia and needed a transfusion right away. Masha took the mom & baby over to the lab to get the mom started on giving blood. Then she went to prep the IV supplies, when she came back, they’d had some trouble communicating with the mom and didn’t have the blood. So Masha took the baby back to peds to start an IV. The baby was too far gone though, and as Masha was trying to find a vein to start, the baby died. The mom left, carrying her dead baby down the road with no one to comfort her.

Things like this happen all the time here. I haven’t personally experienced it yet, but I’ve heard many stories. This is a sad, messed-up world. The cynical part of me wants to say that maybe it’s better for the baby not to have to grow up fighting through bout after bout of malaria, or going hungry, or dealing with any of the many problems that are so evident here. But then I think of the mother. I wonder how many other children she has, or if she’s lost any others to malaria. Death isn’t very fair.