Spinning Our Wheels in Zim

Before the vacation photos start flying to feature the highlights of our freshly-taken trip to Gonarezhou, I am surprising even myself by interrupting for a few family updates.  This is because while en route to returning from this week's adventures, we suddenly discovered that we are taking another trip tomorrow... this time to South Africa.

For those of you who don't follow the gory details of my Oregon Trail life, I have been on, in, or on the floor next to, the toilet for the last four months.  I have lost almost thirty pounds and spend most days like a half-zombie with food poisoning.  After nine doctors visits, three medication attempts, five trips to the lab, and one week of mistaken identity with someone else's labs (in which my -former- dr accidentally put me on anti-suicidal medication),  it is time to fly south.  We are migrating to Johannesburg for a week involving drs appointments and "exploratory surgery" on Wednesday.  My -new- doctor and I are hoping that I have an African parasite-induced colitis, the only curable kind of colitis.  I would prefer this option, but after that I really would just settle for any ol' solid answer someone can give me.

Our travels sound unusual, but welcome to life in Africa- where flying to the doctor is sometimes the only option.  Our local friends often like to say, "There is nothing more challenging than living in a third world country that likes to pretend it is a first world country." Though they are usually talking about electrical supplies and traffic, nothing could be more true of the medical world in Africa. Though Zim is full of competent general-practitioner doctors, the labs and testing can only take things so far and specialists are limited. (Oh, that, and the competency of lab technicians and support staff can be questionable!) We are told there is a stunted ability to do histology here, and that should we actually have discovered the issue, often the necessary medicine is in South Africa anyway.

The good news is that South African clinics are used to having their patients fly in from all different countries.  And often, as in my case, they will set up an entire week of consultations, tests, surgeries, and labs during one phone call, all crammed into one action packed week.  Talk about service.  It is a relief that at this very time next week, I may be five times farther in the process than I am right now.

In the meantime, we are finding humor in another piece of the puzzle... the day after we return to Zim, our visas and TEPs expire and we will no longer be allowed in the country.  Unless these passport stamps are sorted at the last minute this week while we are away, we could be flying back out to South Africa the day after we return to Harare for week -and trip- number three! Like flying to the doctor, this would not be atypical, either. We'll keep you posted, and in the meantime, perhaps even get to some of those Gonarezhou stories we are itching to tell!

Typhoid Trials

As I sat by our housekeepers’ hospital bed last weekend, watching her writhing in pain as tears rolled from her swollen eyes, my head spun.  I’d like to present myself as the brave hero that was nothing but confident that everything would be fine, but that would be entirely untrue.  Thoughts of handling a Shona funeral, Ziwone’s baby, and what I’d tell her husband crept into my mind.  And hospital bills…

I had refused to do it.  I just could not drop her off at P.N., the federally run hospital downtown used by gardeners and housekeepers all over the city.  The hospital is notorious for its day-long waiting lines full of corpses and all body fluids. When I thought about our gardener’s  uncle, who died in that very waiting line just a few short months ago, I turned the car and took Ziwone to a private hospital. It was more expensive for sure, but she was in bed hooked up to an I.V. within ten minutes.  And thank goodness she was.  It was typhoid.

Our first contact with typhoid fever has led to an exhausting week of medical tests for everyone on our property, clinics and hospital visits, and water samples.  Our high-elevation city of Harare has an amazing track record when it comes to malaria. But it is known for its outbreaks of typhoid, a serious, life-threatening disease still present in the Third World. The city’s water supply is often compromised with the bacteria, causing epidemic rampages among lower socio-economic citizens who use the water supply as their only available source of water.

Boreholes (sort of like private wells) on properties throughout the city are sworn to be safe.  But occasionally septic seepage can infect a borehole or, in some cases, an entire neighborhood.  When a person tests positive for typhoid, the city sends an investigator to test the water, as it is serious business.  Though we did have an investigator come quickly, he took samples from our hot water geyser when we had no electricity to run our borehole pump.  Therefore the accuracy of his test is anything but reliable, so we await a private company’s results.

Typhoid can be spread a number of ways.  Though it is a salmonella bacteria most often transported in water, it can be found on fresh produce washed with infected water, communicable through bodily fluids, and occasionally carried by an insect that has recently landed on infected feces.  It is a good reminder, if nothing else, to keep our guard up despite our comfort in the Third World. 

While we await our water results, we had everyone on our property tested. Four people tested positive for typhoid and were treated immediately, including little Lilly. Kurt, Jonas, and I, all vaccinated last year, were left unscathed. We’re quite thankful after watching the agony of Ziwone, who is slowly on the mend. 

Now to go buy some more bottled water…

Oral Rehydration Therapy

I once ate a scratch n' sniff sticker the size of my hand that was supposed to smell like birthday cake.  I once licked purple bird poop to win a sweatshirt.  And I once drank an entire glass of ketchup mixed with grape juice. My youthful days of illogical dares still confound me.

But this was worse.  As someone told me a few days ago, "It's like drinking a cup of your tears."  I would say it's pretty much like combining a cup of sweat with a cup of yellow gatorade.

Apparently my life is a game of Oregon Trail these days.  I have just had my third bout of stomach flu-dysentery-food poisoning-cholera in two months time.  I am sorry to be talking about it here.  But it has not been pretty.  And this kind of sickness is much more common in the tropics than more temperate climates. As a friend so eloquently told me recently, "It's the luck of the draw.  If the fly that lands on your food has just come from a pile of dog crap, you'll never know until you're face down in the toilet."

My latest attempt to recuperate has led me to Oral Rehydration Therapy, a common treatment for dysentery in rural areas of Africa.   It is basically the 3rd World version of Pedialyte.  And though it tastes like sweaty back, believe it or not, this well studied treatment actually even has its own wikipedia page.  Developed throughout the 1800s and 1900s, Oral Rehydration Therapy has saved millions of lives throughout the continent.

ORT, as it is known, is a ratio-ed solution of salt, water, and sugar. 750 mL of water is mixed with 6 level teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  The solution is then drunk (gagged down) with the promise of feeling entirely better by the next day... or two.  This solution is made of easily accessible items, though one can also purchase ORS (Oral Rehydration Salts) packets to carry as first aid.  The use of this solution has become so standard in our country, that I am told the printed directions are given to new parents as part of birth certificate paperwork.

Let's hope it works.  I am ready to get off the Oregon Trail at any time.