Malaria strikes again

Dog still under the effects of sedation- only time I've seen this.

So I do have a legit excuse for promising to get back to blogging and after less than a week falling away already. I arrived back to Soroti for CLIDE's annual budget/planning meeting which is days of discussions, budgets, long term strategy and team building because the team comes from five different districts.  We don’t ALL get together that often. I don’t like long days of meetings but I understand the necessity. The upside was that having some extra vets around enabled me to get my pets some needed medical care.  My cat, the one that kills snakes, had cancer in his eye and it needed to be removed. Also, the dog that I’m caring for from Beckie and Ruudy needed to be spayed. 

Then this week I came down with a rocking case of malaria. This illness really sucks. I couldn’t help but think about the response in the states to flu season between huge pushes for prevention, rapid treatment including quick diagnosis, good symptom management including rehydration (for most people who are not even dehydrated yet), the most current treatment options, and back home to bed. For an illness that will not kill most people if they stay at home in bed and drink Gatorade and take Tylenol.Now I know I have been out of the states a while now and health care has some major problems but the vast majority of people who seek care get dang good care.

But here, Malaria is far more fatal, and the clinics and hospital’s already limited resources are overwhelmed, diagnosis is hit and miss, treatment options are antiquated, and people are not treated based on their need but on their ability to pay.  

The good news for me is that I have access to rapid tests that the majority of this country doesn’t have so I caught it early and have the most current treatment options in the house. Between that and bedrest (don’t worry mom, today is the first day I’ve been out of bed more than an hour at a time!) Tylenol and Gatorade I managed. But I still probably should have had someone start an iv wednesday night and am going to spend the next month trying to get my Hbg back over 7.

Anyway, that is what is going on in my life right now.