The Adventures of Malaria Jane!

I'm ashamed to admit that I woke up Tuesday morning with excitement. I heard the rain falling outside and thought to myself, "Yay! Maybe we won't do visitations and we can bum around all morning." 

Then LeAnne came back in the room and I shared with her my hope for that day. She replied "I don't know if I could do visitations today. I don't feel so well." I figured maybe she caught my cold. We went out to breakfast and she couldn't eat very much or sit up for very long. Wendy took her temperature and saw that she had a little bit of a fever. So she had her go back to bed. After awhile she began complaining of pain in her lower back and we checked and saw that her temperature had gone up again. Wendy figured that she had malaria, from spending the 3 days up in the mountains.

And so continued the next 5 days of our life. At first, due to the classes and the fact that all the natural remedies we've used so far have worked so well, we decided to to try and deal with it naturally. The book and teachers suggested giving her a hot foot bath with a hot towel underneath her back. We tried this, but Wendy was really afraid because LeAnne already had a fever and she didn't want to raise her body temperature too much. After that we applied a lot of cold mitten friction, which is basically when you take 2 cold, wet washcloths and rub them down her arms and legs. I spent the next day constantly switching the cold washcloth on LeAnne's head, giving cold mitten friction treatments, and checking her temperature. However, the treatment only seemed to be encouraging her fever to go higher and higher.

Me: (takes thermometer from LeAnne) Hmm...40o C.

LeAnne: So, what is that?

Me: I don't know, I'll check. (types number into temperature converter) OH MY GOSH!

LeAnne: What? How high is it?

Me:....uh...its not so bad....Let me put some more ice in this water....

At one point, LeAnne's temperature hit a high of 40.3o C or, as it is more easily understood, 104.54o F. That night, Wendy came home and suggested we use medicine. Wendy has seen MANY Malaria cases. She worked up in the mountains of Palawan for 7 years and knows pretty much everything there is to know about the dangers of untreated Malaria. She decided to start LeAnne on the medicine because she didn't want to risk it. We all agreed and LeAnne started Malaria medication. 

I try to convince LeAnne to eat some Pomelo. It was huge! The size of my face!

LeAnne continued with the medicine, and spent most of the day just laying in bed and sleeping. We did our best to keep her eating, but she was never really that hungry. She usually just took a couple bites and spent the rest of the time moving it around so it would look like she ate more of it. 

Your suppose to eat the soup! But still, Clever. ;)

Finally after 4 days of being in bed, she was finally able to walk around a little bit. She would come with me to the kitchen to eat and then would go back to bed and sleep for awhile. On Saturday, Wendy suggested that we try to go outside and get some Vitamin D. So we walked outside the house, for the first time in 5 days. It was amazing...although the view wasn't so great, as Wendy and Dwayne live in a busy subdivision, and it kinda had a bad smell, but STILL it was something different :) We didn't want risk walking too far, but LeAnne enjoyed the sunlight so I went in the house and found a nice bench to sit on. There is no such thing as a driveway or sidewalk in the Philippines. So we just plopped in the road. It was awesome, Filipinos drive by and see 2 white girls sitting on a bench in the middle of the road...TOTALLY normal ;)

Sunday morning, after days of praying, LeAnne woke up with no fever, no nausea, and no pain. Praise God! We were overjoyed. LeAnne was a trouper. Those who have had malaria will tell you how awful it is. The illness is bad enough, but then you add the medicine! From what I've heard (I have never had malaria...*knock on wood*) Chloroquine, the medicine, is really bitter and the side effects are worse. It makes you very emotional and can give you some really weird nightmares. But through it all, LeAnne would still smile at me when I came in the room. So proud of her! As for me, I felt guilty. Tuesday morning I wanted nothing more than to spend the day bumming around. We ended up spending 5 days bumming around the house at the expense of my best friend being incredibly sick. It definitely wasn't worth it :( Now, I will be more careful what I wish for.

I leave you with this...if you come to the Philippines and decided to visit the island of Palawan and find yourself compelled to climb the mountains or even go near the base of the mountains...

Wear Bug Repellent...

and lots of it...

That is all.

"and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

~Psalms 50:15