Sickness finally strikes

It finally happened. The stomach of steel was defeated and I got sick. Friday morning I woke up at 3 with abdominal pain and spent 90 minutes expelling gas form both ends of my digestive tract. I passed so much gas and burped so much I'm surprised I hadn't been floating near the ceiling like Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe when I woke up. I had one of the main symptoms of a parasitic infection: the parasite burps. Parasite burps are just the worst. You know how if you burp soon after eating sometimes you can taste a little bit of you meal in burp? Well parasite burps taste like you just ate a literal shit sandwich. It's like farting through your mouth. Gross to read? Yes. Lots grosser to go have go through.

Having two grandmothers who were both nurses taught me not to mess around with my health. So I took a car in to Cusco at 9 to visit Clinica San José, where they know a number of JVs by name. Erin explained the whole process to me so I got through it all smoothly. I talked with the insurance company and confirmed that they'd cover the visit (every doctor's visit is completely covered in our insurance).

I gave a blood and poop sample (2 separate samples) and waited on the 6^th floor, which is the cushy floor for tourists. When my results came back the doctor told me I had a bacterial infection in my intestine and parasite eggs. So he gave me antibacterials, antiparasitics, anti-nausea pills, and probiotics.* I took my first dose of the meds and left the clinic.

the view out the window of the 6th floor

I had to run an errand for the house at Plaza Vea – the massive supermarket that I, having grown up with a supermarket that has less than 8 aisles, find overwhelmingly huge. It's probably a normal size market for a lot of Americans. I picked up brownie mix and whipping cream. At the register I had to run up to the bathroom where I threw up the meds I had ingested just 20 minutes before. So I decided to return to the clinic to talk with the doctor again.

I ended up puking again near the manager's office. So the doctor decided to give me an IV and have me stay the night - in the fanciest hospital room I've ever seen - to stabilize my system so I can take meds in the morning.

Erin and Theresa were wonderful enough to stop by and bring a bag of items I requested from my room. So now I'm set with wifi, my laptop charger, and Netflix (Agents of SHIELD Season 2!!!). My left hand is very cold (the IV blocks my sleeve from fully covering my arm, but otherwise I feel fine. I'm expecting to go home tomorrow happy as a clam that's not allowed to eat milk or eggs for a week.

This whole episode brings up the issue of health for us volunteers. Sickness is really common in our house. My hope is to develop that theme over the next week or two a bit so that you can get a sense of some of the health risks we run up against regularly. For now, rest assured that I'll be fine and this is probably just a passing thing.

*The probiotics are to help my digestive tract rebuild its population of good bacteria that could have been harmed by the antibacterials.