Irony of malaria

After a week of well baby nursery and starting out patient clinic during my pediatric rotation, I noticed that I had a high fever. My first thoughts were that I had gotten a virus from one of the kids or that I had malaria from my trip to Africa this summer. The next night, however, the truth came out as I woke up with my bedsheets and clothes were soaked to the skin. I had to change everything so that I could go back to sleep. At that point I knew I had malaria because I didn't think that I had cancer or tuberculosis which can also give you night sweats.

Because the fevers would spike and then I would feel alright, I went to the clinic to talk to the pediatricians about what I had. I followed one of the interns for a while until I was shivering so bad that he told me that I needed to go a doctor. I drove with my windows up on a hot July day so that I wouldn't feel so cold. I went to the student health center because of my horrible health insurance deductible of $2500. They took my blood and cleaned up my vomit and told me they would contact me when my results were in.

I figured that they would want to treat me and that it was better to be near a hospital than at my home alone if something went wrong, so I went to class. I had to leave because I had another fever spike. I went to Dr.Hale's office, my research mentor and infectious disease doctor, who was in Ghana. I laid down on the floor as his secretary got his PA to come see me. She had to call the lab twice to get my results because they weren't going to read them for two days. From my experience in Africa and studies on malaria I knew the dangers of cerebral malaria and was shocked that I wasn't going to get treatment. Luckily, I got some Malarone pills from someone who didn't need them and under Terry, Dr. Hale's PA , I took them. I threw up the first dose (which each dose costs $32 and there were a total of 3, and I had to get another dose). I only took one because I felt that I had absorbed some...not good. Then after my medication finished and I had another episode of night sweats I self treated with expired doxycycline (my prophlyaxis from a year previous.) I called the pharmacists and she said that by doing that I made my medication 40% less effective (she also told my mom about how stupid that was when she picked up my meds for me and got her worried.) I got one more dose.

And after a week of symptoms I felt better. I was pretty scared through the whole thing though because I was peeing blood and could feel my spleen and liver were enlarged. Dr. Hale returned from Africa they day I felt better and said that I should have been hospitalized. I had P. falciporum the most deadly species, but only 1% parasitemia.

The people at the public health department laughed at me because I was supposed to be studying about malaria prevention and ended up getting it. My excuse was that my deet in my backpack ate through my medication on the way home from Africa and I took the risk because I was already home. I lost, but now I have a funny story to tell. The health department did contact me and said there are mosquitoes in Utah that can carry malaria. I went camping in the windrivers right after getting home. I feel that if there is an outbreak of malaria in Wyoming it is my revenge for that stupid speeding ticket!

Wind Rivers and Rainbows

Two days after getting home from Africa, Brent and I went to the wind rivers to explore the vast wilderness of Wyoming. On my way there, I recieved my first speeding ticket which was awesome. We found out at a diner from a weird gray haired waitress that had the blank stare of a serial killer that the "Rainbows" were having their convention up where we were going to be. Driving up there, we saw a couple of people hitch hiking and when we got into the mountains we discovered the school buses turned homes, pirate flags, and naked people. It was pretty great. We ended up getting up to Big Sandy at 10 at night to be pretty much the only group at the lake. We put our food in the bear box and slept to the sounds of the river rushing a hundred yards away...beautiful. I woke up and played my harmonica waiting for Brent to wake up which he did at 900 and then we went and hiked the cirque of the towers. The hike was through snow up to our thighs at sometimes. It was quite an adrenaline rush as we walked on the frozen snow through the boulder field because you never knew if the next step you would stay on top of the frozen snow or a fall to an unknown depth. When we got to the cirque and had lunch, there was a marmot that was watching us. I was stupid and gave it part of my bagel. We tried to take a nap but the marmot would get on the different boulders that we would be sleeping on and steal things. We would throw rocks and try to scare him, but he had a short memory and would keep coming back. I finally hit him twice in the face and he left us alone. (It was from lots of good practice from throwing rocks at Paul and Spencer on hikes. I knew those skills would come in handy one day.) The cirque was pretty cool. The next day, we went and hiked to the top of East Temple Peak. The hike was intense as it consisted of hiking through a river and ice on top of the river, snow that you couldn't stay on top of, and the edges of frozen lakes (which sometimes broke.) We were beat already when we got to the steep boulder fields of the peak. I thought that I was going to throw up. We finally got to the top and rested and saw an incredible view. We then came down the mountain part of which consisted up sliding on our butts down one of the steep slopes that we had to climb up. Coming down was much better than going up and I finally didn't care about getting my feet wet so I walked through the river on the way down. We were beat that night and I burned off my shoe laces trying to dry them by our fire. We got down the next day when 3 huge groups were going up. They probably waited for Monday because they went to church. I figured I prayed so much more hiking to East Temple Peak that I would survive than I normally do that I was justified in hiking on the Sabbath. On the way home, because of Brent's beard and my neck beard people thought we were Rainbows and would be pretty angry when we wouldn't pick them up when they were hitch hiking. I felt a little guilty especially because I have always wanted to hitchhike for the experience and never dared to. Especially because I don't really feel hippies are dangerous. I just had a bunch of clothes that David had given me for rotations in the back seat and wanted to get home in a hurry. I am not the hippie that I would like to be, but at least I survived and felt the efforts of my hiking in the wind rivers for the next week.