I'm certain as a result of the poor sanitary conditions in which I've been living, I became terribly ill Tuesday. Monday I was dirty but fine. Tuesday I began to run a temperature. I also had pain in my head, throat, back, joints, and abdomen. And the crowning glory, diarrhea.
Wednesday and Thursday passed in a feverish nightmare. Pain that defied high doses of ibuprofen. Arctic heat and tropic cold. Uncontrollable shakes. Frenzied rushes to the toilet every thirty minutes, twenty if I ate a cracker. And when I did sleep, dreams from which I woke up literally screaming for help.
On Friday the partner called an ambulance. I didn't want to go to the hospital, but I couldn't make the walk to the doctor's office. He insisted. I spoke to a doctor on the phone and she decided to send them to make sure I wasn't carrying swine flu.
One of the paramedics was adorable with a diamond stud in his ear. The other obviously thought I was a waste of their time. Oh, and the uniforms. I don't think I've ever mentioned how much I like men in uniform. Suffice it to say that if I had been able to focus on anything other than not shitting my pants in front of them or keeping the various parts of my head from exploding in all directions, I would have been drooling like a lap-puppy.
They put a mask on me in case I was infectious and walked me down the stairs to the ambulance. My legs were cramping probably from dehydration. The cute one rode in the back with me, and the irritated one drove, with the partner in the passenger seat. On the way he assured me the mask was just a precaution. I tried to say "in case of swine flu" to indicate I understood. I had the words all wrong, but he figured out what I was saying. He then went on to explain that swine flu started when, "one person, one man was fucking with a pig and it mutated." He could have told me it started when a gum drop tumbled down off the big rock-candy mountain and I would have reacted with equal surprise. You don't hear about these things in the papers.
At the hospital there was a great deal of waiting around in a wheelchair while they admitted me and made my little plastic bracelet. Then they wheeled me into a room. It was much more efficient than many experiences I've had in the American health system. The doctor was already talking to me while another person took my temperature and blood pressure. The doctor focused first on the onset of my symptoms and exactly when I arrived from the U.S. She then told me I could take the mask off. It wasn't swine flu.
She listened to my stomach and looked in my ears. She determined it was just a virus. She recommended switching off between paracetamol and ibuprofen for the fever and consuming nothing but water for at least a day while the diarrhea continued.
By Saturday my fever had broken. I'm still shitting pure liquid, but it's once every two to four hours now instead of every twenty minutes. And thank goodness we can finally flush the toilet again since our cistern is beginning to fill.
This is the best, the quickest diet I've ever been on. If I can keep this up for another week I'll weigh as much as I did at the onset of puberty. I just wish it didn't have to be this painful (he said, pausing to double over the keyboard with cramps). Seriously though, it will be nice to feel normal again some day. The doctor said two or three days four days ago. I'm still waiting.
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