It finally happened

I finally got what was coming to me. After six months of being in great health and not having one problem and making fun of everyone who got sick I finally got sick. It happened while I was in Zanzibar and can honestly say it was one of the worst experiences in my life. I have never felt so bad and had no way to fix it. The ironic thing is the morning before anything happened I was bragging to two other volunteers on the way to the beach about how I had never had any problems and then bam that night it hit me. I started running a high fever and could not move my body hurt so bad, the first thing I thought was Malaria but I tired to tough it out. This attitude lasted one day while I laid in the heat of the apartment we were in literally feeling like death I decided that the next day I would risk it and go to a Tanzanian hospital. The next day I had two of the volunteers Katie and Jacob go with me to the hospital because I was not functioning at all. Jacob was great he speaks Swahili almost fluently and was able to get me into get my blood drawn. As a side note most of you that know me know that I am terrified of needles/ things never go well when I have my blood drawn. Just picture me being looking like a hot mess and attempting to plead with a massive Tanzanian lady to please take the blood out of my hand. Luckily Jacob had my back and convinced her to do it and I managed to pull through.
The blood results came back and luckily it was not malaria but on the down side they told me they in fact had no idea what kind of infection/parasite it was and gave me medicine and told me I would be fine by the next day. As per usual that was not the case the next day much to my surprise I was actually worse , but after the experience of the hospital I really didn’t want to go back something about an African hospital just didn’t set well with me. Maybe it was the fact that they were carrying around a legit newborn baby with blood still on it or the fact that there was a guy with gaping wounds just hanging out in the waiting room call me crazy but I really didn’t feel like that was okay.

My boss luckily found me a doctor that catered to the expat crowd so the next day we went. I was so dehydrated that they told me I needed three IVs so be better the only problem was when they were attempting to put the IV in (at this point I was so out of it I really wasn’t that worried about the needle) the awesome nurse from Spain with the lip ring (so professional right?) kept missing my vein she tried my hand then my arm and couldn’t get it in finally on the 5th try she got it. I was finally starting to feel better and even better the doctor promised to have me better by the next night which was New Years Eve. I had to go back the next morning when yet again they couldn’t get the IV in and then decided to leave it in my arm until I came back in the evening because they had run out of veins to poke. I looked rough walking around Zanzibar with an IV thing in my arm everyone was super nice to me though which was a plus.
I had high hopes for New Years Eve but instead I ended up spending it until ten o’clock at the hospital with another one of the volunteers who was also sick and ended up staying in and eating my first meal in four days, I feel like it was a win. This experience was god awful because I have never been so sick before and not had a way of fixing it that day. I am now going to be a lot less risky with what I eat and drink because god knows I don’t want that to happen EVER again.