Sick Days

Written October 4, 2010

At Southern, I never missed a day of class. Getting sick was not something I did often. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I felt really nasty while at school, and I still never skipped a class. Lizzie warned Sarah and I that we might be sick here a lot, but after making it 3 full weeks without feeling even a little bit sick, I assumed that we’d escaped the worst of it. Wrong! When Sarah’s brother, Taylor, arrived in Ethiopia to work at Gimbie Adventist Hospital, we joined the Gimbie-bound crew for a few days in the mountains. While there, I developed an interesting, circular welt on my neck. “What’s on your neck , Liv?” Sarah questioned one afternoon. “Is it red?” I asked, “Probably just another bug bite,” I decided. But as the itch intensified and the bump got larger, Sarah took the opportunity to ask one of the visiting medical students about it on our walk to town. “That looks like ringworm,” one of them suggested. The other one was not so sure, but Chris persisted, saying he’d had it several times in the States and it looked similar. Those of you who saw all of the medical paraphernalia I brought to Ethiopia won’t be surprised that I had actually brought cream for this very purpose, but alas it was in Guder and I was in Gimbie. Sebastian gave me some cream to start treating it, and I resumed treatment the next day when we got “home.” Ringworm was only the beginning. Sleep-deprived from the trip back to Guder and still experiencing fairly intense culture shock, our immune systems were not up to par. I came down with a cough and headache the day we got back. School’s beginning was again postponed, and we spent the week hanging out with the kids. The following Monday evening after a trip into Ambo, Sarah and I spent nearly 2 hours doing a massive load of laundry that had accumulated since before our Gimbie trip. Before we finished washing, the temperature dropped substantially and we began to get chilly. We were both exhausted from our trip to town and the vigorous washing, but fought to the finish and completely our entire load. My cough had not gone away, and I began to feel a little achy and cough a little more. We threw a Fall party for the kids that night, as promised, which was a BLAST, but afterwards when we collapsed in our room Sarah began complaining that her face was super sore, like she’d been smiling too much. We joked that she was coming down with the Mumps, as many of the kids have had Mumps while we’ve been here, but knew that was ridiculous since she’d been vaccinated. Much to our surprise, however, the next morning she woke up with the right side of her jaw twice it’s normal size and in intense pain. That began several days of her resting in bed, me “nursing her back to health” as best I could. At this same point in time, there was a little girl who required medicine around the clock, and Sarah and I had been waking up at midnight to give her medicine. With Sarah out of commission, I took up the night medical calls by myself. This wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but the two orphanage dogs had been keeping us company from about 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM since we got back from Gimbie, and sleep was already scarce. The lack of sleep was just what my worsening cough did not need, and during a coffee ceremony at the Principle’s house one afternoon, I went to a coughing spasm so bad that I had to excuse myself early and come back for medicine. I spent the next few days in bed, coughing so bad I nearly threw up every time. Through phone calls to the US, we finally came up with a solution to begin eliminating my cough. The medicine helped, but the dogs persisted. Sarah’s mumps were gone and I felt good enough to teach, so began school with everyone else that Tuesday, exactly 6 weeks after arriving in Ethiopia. We made it through the week of teaching, but the dogs were the worst they’ve ever been that weekend. We hardly slept at all. On Sunday, I called one of the orphanage directors and asked him what we could to about the dogs. He apologized and took care of it right away. The problem was immediately fixed, but alas the damage had already been done. That evening, after a day of incredibly stuffy noses for both Sarah and myself, I came down with a fever. Both of our heads felt like they might explode. My entire face ached and I could hardly breathe, and Sarah wasn’t doing much better. Thankfully, the dog problem was fixed and the extra sleep worked wonders, but we both woke up Monday morning feeling too pitiful to teach. I had already taken two “sick days” during the week before school started (we had very, very relaxed school days with only a few classes for three days the week before school really started) and felt terrible skipping again, but did not have the energy to get out of bed. The medicine Mom had suggested during my 4:45 AM (don’t worry, it was 9:45 PM her time) phone call had helped decongest us, and we felt worlds better, but still far too miserable to have the energy to teach. So, I gave in and agreed to stay in bed, feeling that one more day of relaxing and another night of uninterrupted sleep would renew me to my pre-illness state, rather than pushing myself and postponing my recovery. The day indoors has worked wonders for both Sarah and I, and we are eager to head back to school tomorrow with renewed energy and health. Yes, the “mission field” has thrown curves at us that we never would have expected, but God is good and we are falling in love with the setting and the kids. So there you have it—Ringworm, Mumps, a nasty cough, fevers, and head colds—and here we are, nearly 3 weeks after the first sign of sickness, almost as good as new. Kudos to those of you who made it all the way through this post, or “book” as Sarah christened it when she looked over my shoulder and saw the length of this thing. Ha! Blessings to you all! Thanks so much for your prayers, letters, and FB comments (which we hear about from family). Love and miss you all! Hugs and smiles from a “foreign” land!

Added October 5, 2010: Should have Internet more often soon and hope to do better at updating this, but we'll see how the new connection works!!!