Just Plain Sick 5 of 10
Ok, well this most recent sickness was real pain. I was at site with my usual work load a whole bunch. I have a garden that needs water, ducks that need a new home and a new pond, and i need to collect more tree seeds for a live fence i am building. I was getting along really good i had just bought 2 bags of cement, and a whole stack of corrugated steel. My garden has pumpkin plants that were just starting to show signs of fruit. I also had about 10 other things i was trying to juggle at the same time so to say the least i was really busy.
All of that did not seem to matter to the cold that i caught. Now usually I am a pretty tough guy, but this bug brought me to my knees. I had no energy, no appetite and worst of all i was running a fever of 103. I was not aware you could have the chills with a temp this high, but i had them.
Now like everybody else I have had a high fever before, and I have a pretty good idea how to handle it. This fever was unusually persistent. So after eating very little, sweating profusely, and wrestling with this fever for 5 days i finally decided to come in to Banjul where if i needed medical attention i could get it in a reasonable time. At site i am about 8 hrs from a hospital, so major sicknesses i have to track my symptoms and make sure i am staying hydrated.
All of this being said, I left Friday morning for Kombo and i was running about 100 degrees. By 4 in the afternoon when i walked in to the transit house I was at 97.2. Perfect. So i am not sure if it was a break in the heat or if i was just done being sick, but i was just thrilled to be feeling better. Timing of my trip was a little early, because i had to come into Kombo for training, on Sunday. Even though i had done nothing but lay in bed for the last 5 days. I was still was reluctant to leave site.
So yea I gave this thing a 5 of 10 just because it managed to completely shut me down for 5 complete days and it took me several days after not being sick to start feeling normal again. I was also very sad not to get done with a couple of projects i wanted to finish before I left site, but oh well they will still be there when i get back.
