Notes from: March 16, 2012

(I have held off posting this one for the sake of family members who might worry.)

Today I have a phenomenal case of diahhrea, nausea, upset stomach, and eye socket ache.  I am lying as still as I can and swallowing cipro and even had one of the hotel staff rebuke the ailment in the name of the Lord.  I’m not sure what the cause might be.  I think I’ve eaten fairly carefully recently.  Well, that may not be true.  I’ve strayed here and there.  Trying to pin it down though is like finding a needle in a haystack.  If there is one thing that could cause it there are a thousand.  Apart from walking around in a hasmat suit you take your chances.

The symptoms got worse as the day progressed so by suppertime I was making inquiries about going to the medical clinic.  I gingerly entered a cab who took me to the International Medical Clinic across town.  I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into but as soon as I walked through the open doors a receptionist took down my name and place of residence.  She walked me over to the nurses’ room who weighed me, took my temperature and blood pressure.  We then took a few minutes to clarify that Cambridge is my hometown but I wouldn’t call it my ‘clan’ nor is it a village.  Next, I was taken almost directly to the doctors’ office where I explained the symptoms to a gentle soft spoken young man who looked like the doctor.  I showed him my cipro and he said it was good that I had started it.  He said he wanted a blood and stool sample and led me to the testing area down the hall.  The lab tech was pleasant but not chatty.  He pricked my finger and dripped some blood onto a microscope slide.  He then handed me a small bottle with a little scooper attached to the cap to extract some of my stool.  I went into the unlit men’s washroom which didn’t have a toilet but rather a hole in the floor so it was the squatting kind.  I did my business scooped what I could of the watery substance out from the hole which incidentally had a powerful flushing system.

I took it back to the lab tech and then waited out front.  Within ten minutes the doctor had seen the family ahead of me and motioned straight for me to come into his office.  He went over the finding very thoroughly.  He told me my white blood cells were high and some were deteriorated and explained something about mucus in my stool.  He said that I didn’t have to worry I wasn’t going to die and that I just had a bad case of gastroenteritis, which is an infection in my GI tract from something I ate.  He said I should keep on the cipro, he gave me an additive to help with the antibiotic, buscopan for my stomach, and paracetamol for the achiness.   I was so happy to hear these results I wanted to give him a hug.  He was an amazingly supportive doctor.  He said if I had any trouble to call him back any time and wrote his name and number on a piece of paper along with the results of my blood and stool sample.  He then said to come back tomorrow evening just so he could check on me to make sure I was getting better.

From the moment I entered the clinic to the time I was collecting my prescriptions was less than half an hour.  I received two bills: one for the consultation fee which included the nurses’ information, the tests, and seeing the doctor for explanation and one for the prescriptions.  The cost for consultation was 20 000 schillings which is equal to $10.  The medications themselves cost 6000 schillings which is equal to $3 for a total of $13 for the whole visit.  I’m not sure I have ever had as good and efficient medical care before.  I was so happy it wasn’t malaria or typhoid or some other death inducing disease I was filled with the need to show gratitude.  I thought of paying the doctor and staff for their service but thought the better of it so I paid for the medication of the little girl who was ahead of me.  Her parents were delighted in a way that will never grow old on me.  The amount I paid for their medication was equal to a small coffee at home. 

Now I’m getting back to the hotel and glad I’m going to live but still feeling really rough.  Nausea held me at gun point.  I lay as still as I could as if hiding in a closet while the gestapo walk by.  You hold yourself in an effort to keep everything contained.  The bucket is beside the bed and the toilet is just around the corner.  My stomach felt like a fire fight in Kandahar.  Like a strong man wringing out a wet towel my stomach tightened leaving my body with nothing to do but obey and take the express route to the toilet.  Nausea is a playground bully doing with you what it wants.  Take whatever metaphor you like.

That night I lay motionless trusting in the fight that my white blood cells were waging on these foreign invading bodies.  I am reduced to a puddle here in Lira.  For all the beauty and vibrancy Africa is welcoming me with another of its gifts.  It brings me to reflect on being sick and being in need. 

First off the Ugandan people are just tougher in every way.  Me, at the first hint of sickness, I believe that my days are now numbered.  Then I have a need to be nurtured, attended to, nursed but I don’t want to appear to need these things.  I don’t want to have to ask for them.  So, there is a fairly small window in which I can tolerate being helped when I am sick.  Perhaps men need to preserve the appearance that they can ‘handle’ their weakness on their own but if you have ever seen a man regress to being 6 looking for the care of his mom it isn’t pleasant.  Everyone’s stomach begins to turn at that point.  Being sick in Africa shows me how little control I have.  How dependent I am on others.  It is humiliating for a man to be sick.  It show us our need.  It forces us to lie still – unproductive and useless.  Face to face before a ceramic throne one realizes he is just an organism fighting off foreign invasion.  The unbelievably contradictory décor of the room no longer matters, time of day, whether it’s sunny out or not or whether anything else in life makes sense.  One is reduced to his basic nature as a creature just like all the rest obeying his survival instincts. 

All this has happened to me while a young street boy was brought into ATIN having been badly beaten for stealing.  He had both his arms broken and was battered.  No home.  10 years old.  And, ‘I’, would like everyone to come to a screeching halt to observe my stomach ache.

(I believe I have made a full recovery from this particular stomach bug but the g.i. tract is not impressed with the workout it's getting.)