day 15 :: beyond even implied swear words

Well, I’m out of words. Not permanently, obviously. I’ll find them again.

Probably after I type a few inane ones, about the malaria, typhoid, amoebas, and schistosomiasis.

Okay, about malaria. I don’t have it. (This is the only piece of good news.)

Okay, about typhoid. I don’t seem to HAVE it, but I probably did. At some point. Maybe all the barfing in Liberia. And I should be treated for the remaining vestiges of it in my body. And no, a positive result can’t come from the vaccine (which I had forgotten to have before I went to Liberia last year, leaving me susceptible).

Okay, about amoebas. I have them. Only not the one that they told me I had in South Sudan. I have a different one, which means:

1. They misdiagnosed them at the free clinic in Tilt (very possible), or
2. I always had more than one type of amoeba (very possible), or
3. I got this amoeba in Sudan after being treated for the previous one (very possible).

This particular amoeba that I do have right now does not respond to the medications I took before, so I have a different medication now. The good news is that the symptoms of this amoeba more accurately fit the symptoms I’ve had over the last year, which makes me think this is the right diagnosis.

Okay, about schistosomiasis (bilharzia). I don’t know yet. The lab lady seems to think it’s possible that I have it and “that might change everything.” Meaning related to the typhoid, somehow. I don’t know.

Then she asked, “WHERE have you been?”

And what I want to ask is, “How is this possible? How did I have typhoid and not know it? How did I live a year with an amoeba?” (Actually, I sort of know the answer to question two, which is that I had decent nutrition in the US and decent nutrition staves off the effects of the amoeba, like, say, weakness and stomach pain.) But typhoid? TYPHOID? Typhoid Mary? Is that what I am?

Don’t freak out! I’m not freaking out! See? Calm! Totally calm! Other than how I feel all feverish now that I know that I HAD TYPHOID WITHOUT KNOWING IT.

I am being treated, yos. I will not give you typhoid. Aren’t you SO GLAD that I am one of those few people in the world who wash their hands obsessively after visiting a bathroom? I watch people walk out without washing and I frown at them. They are the disease-causers, not me. Except they probably don’t have any diseases to cause.

That ice cream in a cart from the street vendor at the Firestone plantation was totally a mistake. He probably used river water, contaminated by all the people upstream using the river as a toilet. Do you know what that means? Ew. Ew. That means that I inadvertently ate poo. Ew. Ew.

Excuse me while I go barf repeatedly.