Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches….

August 1, 2005

Happy Monday - well in the sense that it wasn't as bad as Sunday - in the end, due to the fact that I didn't have a severe headache and the only part of me aching was my neck, it was determined that I didn't have Dengue fever - also I'm not displaying a multitude of flu like symptoms related to not keeping anything down regardless of how it tries to find a way out....... yes that's a relevantly nice way of putting it... all in all I just had a nasty virus.

Sunday turned out to be the worst of what it had to offer - which I sweated out like the loafing soldier I am (!) and Monday has been spent restocking on water and food along with a new batch of pills - all resulting in allowing me to watch the evil virus's power diminish like when Mad Max finally took out Master Blaster in the Thunderdome and was left with that evil scrawny midget dude. If I was back in the Uk for example, such flu like virus type stuff would not be anything worth worrying about - but out here and as my experiences in Africa have taught me, such inconsequental symptoms could be the brewing of much larger misfortune. Dengue fever sounds particularly nasty: "Dengue fever usually starts suddenly with a high fever, rash, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, and muscle and joint pain. The severity of the joint pain has given dengue the name "breakbone fever." Nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite are common. A rash usually appears 3 to 4 days after the start of the fever. The illness can last up to 10 days, but complete recovery can take as long as a month. Older children and adults are usually sicker than young children"

"Most dengue infections result in relatively mild illness, but some can progress to dengue hemorrhagic fever. With dengue hemorrhagic fever, the blood vessels start to leak and cause bleeding from the nose, mouth, and gums. Bruising can be a sign of bleeding inside the body. Without prompt treatment, the blood vessels can collapse, causing shock (dengue shock syndrome). Dengue hemorrhagic fever is fatal in about 5 percent of cases, mostly among children and young adults"

In other words - Seriously nasty shit.

But I don't have it so that's ok.

Monday has been spent behaving like a meek and frail little old man - I've still been running a temperature and my glands feel like full pockets, but overall I'll have beaten this demon back to greyskull once the morning rises tmw - I shall of course probably weasel an extra days rest though - just to be sure (and take back some of my weekend from the gods of karma)

Eric reminded me of how it is possible to remember the good times within the bad times of being ill and punished - that once you've got past the feeling like a bag of crap phase, accepted your limitations and slipped into the loafing state that exists beneath your conditions radar - it is possible to moderately enjoy yourself.

The greatest time I was ever ill & punished was when I was in Malawi back in 2000 - I thought I'd gotten used to the heat in Blantyre where I was based down south, my fair skin seemed to be registering a bit of character I thought. Therefore when we went up to the lake at the weekend, I reckoned I was Kool n de gang to go a wandering without the need for protection from the suns dastardly scorching rays - little appreciating the higher altitude - 20 mins along the lakeshore more or less, my girl friend Debbie thought I looked a little cooked so we started using sun cream again.

Over the next couple of days I had felt the pinch of that initial walk along the shore - in fact people were starting to comment that they had never seen skin look so red - sure enough by Sunday afternoon moving my head without suffering agonising pain was impossible - a yellow mountain range of bubbling blisters had arisen across my neck and shoulders - it was so horrific that people I didn't know were asking if they could take pictures - and this was when they had visons such as the below to use their film on instead:

My friends Paul and Sarah plied me with liquor and we drove back to Blantyre - I slept as stiff as a board and then when Patrick the driver came to pick me up the next day for work, I pointed to the back of my neck and good old Patrick grimaced and exclaimed something in Chichewa along the lines of "fucks sake mate! what the fucking Jesus of Mary Mother of God is going on with your God Damned neck! are there gremlins growing in there??"

Soon enough Maganga Maganga (yes his real name - and a truly fantastic one at that) was pulling into the drive to take me to the hospital - upon entry I was seen to by a nurse who placed me in a curtained off cubicle and went to get some relevant doctor type folk - in the cubicle next door I could hear a South African guy describing his Malaria symptoms to a doctor - what I overheard I will never forget and it is one of the reasons I truly hope I never endure one of the harsher versions of this horrible disease - the doctor said "so how many days has this dark black oily fluid been omitting from your rectal orifice" the old guy said "about 3 off and an on". That is unfathomably wrong on so many levels.

So anyways (yeah I'll move this story along so you don't have to dwell on that last thought too much) the doctor arrived with a tub of goo and some tablets - great! - I was to gently rub the goo on the afflicted areas (like I was going to rub it on in any other way) and take the tablets every 4 hours - the tablets were painkillers - so what? you may ask - yes, but these tablets were in Malawi - a place were things can be much more legal than in other places due to not having much choice when it comes down to costs.

Off on a tangent yet still relevant, I give the example of Po-10-C - a purple sweet tasting shot liquor that had made its promotional way up from South Africa - califragilistic stuff - Sarah and myself danced all night long till the break of dawn at the sunny side dance party as a result of it - reason being it was fuelled by some sort of amphetamine and made you buzz like a hive of funky break dancing bees. Suffice to say Po-10-C did not make it much further in its marketing drive and was soon declared illegal and taken off the shelves.

I'm pretty sure my pain killers were the same bag. I sat in a chair for two days grinning like a Cheshire cat after a three way with the Minogue sisters - they were, are and probably always will be, the best drugs I have ever taken in my life - unadulterated bliss.

During my blissful haze I remember watching the Prophecy with Christopher Walken and Eric Stolz, about Angels and Demons walking amongst us carrying out an ongoing holy war - and the effect of the film had me fiercely tripping out thinking that all manner of things were going on all around us yet we just weren't picking up the signs yet - needless to say folk I tried to explain this too thought I was fucking nuts - and once I'd come down off those pain killers retrospectively so did I.

But it was a seriously good ride none the less.

Definitely worth suffering near third degree sunburn for..

So anyways to conclude in the words of Monty Python and the holy grail "I'm not dead.... in fact I think I'm getting better"

Spo | August 1, 2005