Malaria Scare

This weekend my group and I were supposed to go on a boat trip down the Gambia River. However, many of the volunteers ended up coming down with an illness, thus postponing the trip. This last week we were going through a phase in our training called Model School. Each of us were going to teach lessons in a Gambian school. I was tasked with teaching 5th and 6th grade science. About half way through the week some of the volunteers ended up getting sick and had to miss some of the days. Eventually I also ended up getting sick. On Thursday after I finished teaching my last lesson with my 6th graders I started feeling a chill. From there I started running a fever and it went downhill from there. When I made it back to Madianna, I went straight to sleep and try to ride it out the rest of the day. I was able to break my fever, but it left me feeling weak. The next morning some of the volunteers suggested I should go to the medical unit. At first I thought that I was fine and that the worst was over, but eventually I went just to be safe. I was glad that I had listened to them because the worst was yet to come.

Through out most of Friday I felt alright. I ended up spending the night at the transit house to try and get some more rest. I even woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty good. However, not only an hour into the day my fever started coming back. This time with a vengeance! I started feeling chilly and my temperature began to increase. By noon my temperature had gone up to 104.5 degrees. I was taken immediately to go see the US embassy doctor. He did a physical examination and he ended drawing a blood sample to test for Malaria since I was showing some symptoms. Malaria does not very distinct symptoms, some of them can be found with the common cold. But considering that I am in a Malaria risk country the doctor wanted to have my blood checked. Fortunately the test came back negative and my temperature ended up going back down to normal.

So I would say that I've had a pretty tough weekend, but it did remind me of some important things. I have to take extra steps to keep myself healthy in this environment. There are a lot of things here that I have never faced back home. Normally back home I would just tough out an illness, but here I cannot afford to do that. I hope that this post has not got anyone too worried about me. There is a good medical team that is looking out for me. Now I am feeling fit and ready to continue on!