Monday, February 21, 2011

Bad News


Monday, February 21 2011
3:44 PM
Pi Eet just came in to inform us that a little boy at the home named Tinji just got sent to the hospital with Malaria. This is not good news for a number of reasons.
  1. It means that the mosquito that was infected with Malaria was from here....something that is pretty rare. Usually people in this area only get infected if they've been traveling many miles away (e.g. NZ Paul got infected by a mosquito in Cambodia).
  2. Disease bearing mosquitos are especially rare in cool season, and numbers tend to go up in hot season. Hot season starts in April which means we've got a couple of months for the disease bearing population of mosquitos to increase.
  3. The other volunteers advised me to stop taking my anti-malaria meeds when I got here, as the side-effects can be aggravating and malaria is so rare in the first place. I followed their advice.
  4. I just read an autobiography wherein the author got malaria twice and nearly died from it both times. Not to mention the symptoms don't sound fun.

5 comments:

  1. Kimber! Don't get bitten by any mosquitoes... You + Malaria = super bad. Love you!! Hope it all turns out just fine!

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  2. I've got a friend who had Malaria (at least) three times on his mission in Africa. He survived. Can you start taking the pills again?

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  3. Your dad says get on those meds and you shouldn't have gone off them in the first place. Grrr. It is enough that I just want you to come home. At least get a better mosquito net!

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  4. do you get bitten often in the first place? (I'm not suggesting that it's not an important concern, but you haven't seemed pocked with bites when I see you.)

    How long does it take to get the medicine back through your veins? What are the side-affects? Should I just look it up? ok, I'll actually look it up...

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  5. and despite how much your parents will hate me for saying it... there are some things (as I'm sure you already know) that they should never hear about... ;)

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