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!