Back On My Feet

Self medication, I wonder if that’s ever gonna be a thing for me after an unpleasant four days of oscillating body temperatures, lethargy, lack of appetite and plain feeling sick.

Fours day on Ibuprofen and a supper’s bowl of fufu later had me puking, a bitter, phlegmy and sickly yellow expulsion all the while gagging. It doesn’t help that I experienced my gross imagination first hand, simultaneous puking and diarrhea.

Unpleasant.

It’s excellent to surround yourself with great friends. I can’t imagine reaching and footing the hospital bills otherwise.

Great friends.

Hospital information systems in this country are flawed. It takes too damn long to make it to the nurses’ pre-diagnosis and in my case, the coming of Jesus to the consulting room. Don’t get me started on making payments and the back and forth between the pharmacy and the cash collection point.

Urgh.

Institutions tend to forget that at their core is human beings, those who oil its gears and those whom they serve. I am grateful for the show of humanity from the staff. My case (severe malaria) was one for admission but I got detained instead in a staff room in the accident and emergency ward due to a lack of beds in the main wards.

Because, humanity.

I was given four intravenous infusions that lasted hours, especially the last one. I drifted in and out of sleep either sitting or lying and everything between.

A walk back from the hospital, some coconut, a miraculous completion of my medication and lots of rest later, I am back on my feet like nobody’s business.