When I was living in Rwanda, I got a severe cold. I toughed it out, as one is supposed to do with a virus. I drank tea. I drank water. I got lots of sleep. I toughed it out until a day when I was supposed to be running errands in Kigali and instead was moaning on the couch at my boss's house, with his wife bringing me tea every few minutes. I could feel every heartbeat reverberating through my pounding head. I have a feeling that even now, seven years later, the smell of that vinyl couch would make my head hurt.
I finally called my friend B., who is a doctor, and asked him what to do. Since he was the one who normally lectured us about things just being viruses, I didn't expect much, but I was at the point where I genuinely started to think dying might be a relief because it would stop the pain. I was pleasantly surprised when he telephone-diagnosed me with a sinus infection and gave me permission to buy and take amoxicillin. The idea that the pain might go away made me think I might live. Within 24 hours, I felt like a human being again and was all dressed up, out on the town with friends.
I think of this almost every time I get sick, because it was the first time I ever really thought about what life was like before antibiotics. It was the first time that I understood how people died without them: they just could not go on. The disease won. And it still happens now, even in the rich world - we are not immortal, after all - but it is so, so rare, compared to the centuries past, compared to the poorer parts of the world, for a young, healthy person to die for lack of medication.
A few months later, while scouting out some goat pasture locations, I met a little girl with bloody pus dripping out of her ear. She was still trailing after the bigger kids, but clearly less energetic, and the ear obviously hurt. I talked my friend A., a nurse, into going to the pharmacy with me, and we collected the necessary antibiotics and took them out to the little girl's house. A. was from Malawi, but her medical Kinyarwanda was good enough to explain to the girl's mom how to administer the medication, and the next time I saw the little girl, she was running, laughing, up the path in front of me.
I finally called my friend B., who is a doctor, and asked him what to do. Since he was the one who normally lectured us about things just being viruses, I didn't expect much, but I was at the point where I genuinely started to think dying might be a relief because it would stop the pain. I was pleasantly surprised when he telephone-diagnosed me with a sinus infection and gave me permission to buy and take amoxicillin. The idea that the pain might go away made me think I might live. Within 24 hours, I felt like a human being again and was all dressed up, out on the town with friends.
I think of this almost every time I get sick, because it was the first time I ever really thought about what life was like before antibiotics. It was the first time that I understood how people died without them: they just could not go on. The disease won. And it still happens now, even in the rich world - we are not immortal, after all - but it is so, so rare, compared to the centuries past, compared to the poorer parts of the world, for a young, healthy person to die for lack of medication.
A few months later, while scouting out some goat pasture locations, I met a little girl with bloody pus dripping out of her ear. She was still trailing after the bigger kids, but clearly less energetic, and the ear obviously hurt. I talked my friend A., a nurse, into going to the pharmacy with me, and we collected the necessary antibiotics and took them out to the little girl's house. A. was from Malawi, but her medical Kinyarwanda was good enough to explain to the girl's mom how to administer the medication, and the next time I saw the little girl, she was running, laughing, up the path in front of me.
No comments:
Post a Comment