Bad trip

I have heard many horror stories about people falling ill when they visit foreign parts of the world, but for some reason it never occurred to me that one of those stories could become my reality. Maybe because of my youth or my hard head, I convinced myself that I would finish my two year sentence (I mean service) without getting sick. Mother nature had other plans for me.

About two weeks ago I noticed that I started getting the bubble guts (commonly known as diarrhea). I barely had an appetite and I always felt nauseous. This lasted for about a week or so then the symptoms went away.

The next week I took a trip to Ouaga, the capital, and hung out with some friends. We stayed at the transit house and went to this really fancy restaurant (American fancy not Burkinabe fancy). Me being the vegan that I am ordered the veggie platter. Most of the veggies were cooked except the tomatoes. Towards the end of the evening my stomach started to feel a little upset but I figured it was the usual I-ate-way-too-much-food-for-one-normal-sized-human-being feeling. I woke up the next morning at around 5am, rushed to the bathroom, and projectile vomited all of the dinner that I ate the previous night. For the remainder of the day I felt very fatigued, nauseous, and of course no Burkina sickness would be complete without diarrhea. I was bedridden for the whole day and night. I kept coming in and out of consciousness to either throw up or use the bathroom. I figured those raw tomatoes were to blame.

The next day I felt strong enough to go back to site. After I finished greeting all of the people in my site I realized how tired and ill I felt. I went to sleep and the next morning the vomiting and diarrhea started up again. My major (the nurse that works at my site) told me to call the PC doctor. The doc told me to take ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic) 2x a day,  to clear the bacteria out of my system and compazine 3x a day to stop the vomiting. For the first two days I followed these instructions but towards the end of the second day my jaw started to feel tight. I usually clench my jaw when I sleep so figured since I’ve been sleeping all day that must be the reason.

the culprits

 Some time goes by and my jaw is getting worse and worse. It starts to jut out like I have an underbite and cross over its self. It then begins to clench down really hard; so hard that I can feel bits of my teeth breaking off from the pressure. I start to lose control of my tongue too. It becomes really big and I get a lisp or it gets really pointy and hard and sticks out of my mouth. I call the PC doctor again and tell her my symptoms (she could barely understand me at this point). She then calls my major (who lives across the field from me) to come and check my vitals. Everything seems normal other than my spastic jaw and tongue muscles. We stay on the phone with the doctor and she tells me to take Benadryl and ibuprofen. I go to my major’s house so that he can keep an eye on me. Can you picture my face doing all of this weird stuff while my major and his family sits there trying to watch tv? He then gives me a shot of something that is supposed to make me sleep but it doesn’t work. At this point I am very scared and nervous. I begin pacing around and putting my fingers between my teeth to stop the clenching. The symptoms continue to get worst and I begin to lose control of my eyes! This is when I freak out for real! I tried to tell myself to look at the tv screen but my eyes just roll to the back of my head and cross over each other. I can still see but everything is blurred because my eyes are all crossed and twisted. The doctor calls back and tells me that this is a bad reaction from the antibiotics and the anti-nausea meds. Since I took all of the doses that day there was a lot of the drug in my system. It lists it as a rare side effect on the box called hyperreflexia. Just imagine losing control of all the muscles in your face and mouth. Finally she tells my major to give me an injection of Valium to knock me out.

                   

The next thing that I remember is waking up on a cot in my majors house at 5am. The doctor calls me again to ask how I’m doing and she tells me to come back to Ouaga for further inspection. When I get to her office my tongue and jaw start to go crazy again and she gives me a shot of Benadryl. Apparently this is a very rare reaction to the meds but it’s a side affect of both drugs. The doctor has only seen 2 people react this way during their whole practice. Since they were still in my system my body would go into episodes of the hyperreflexia. And that’s why I’m still in Ouaga now. The drugs should be all flushed out soon and I’ll be cleared to go back to my site. But man was that a scary night. I don’t think I would want to live in a permanent state of hyperreflexia. It’s so uncomfortable and a little painful. I just wanted to share that nightmare with all of you. I will be steering clear of Compazine and Ciprofloxacin.

Now that its all over it is kind of funny to imagine how crazy I must have looked that night on my major’s couch in front of his family. lol