Sick and Tired

We went to the doctor yesterday. I called our International SOS health care from Dakar on Wednesday when both Annette and I were having flu-like symptoms. Everybody scares you that it could be malaria. So, I called to be sure. The American doctor on the other end assured me it wasn't and to call him back if I got a fever.

After two days in Accra, things got worse. Annette originally blamed it on sleeping under fans. But we agreed that the air quality there is horrible, mostly ruined by vehicles spouting gray smoke from their exhausts. By Sunday morning, I had no energy, an aching body, a headache and major congestion of my sinuses. And Annette had a soar throat with an unproductive cough that just seemed to be getting worse. So we called SOS again. It was a Sunday. We had two choices. We could go to the Cardiothoracic center at the private hospital, which is basically an ER. Or we could wait until tomorrow and go to a private clinic with an appointment. We opted for the hospital today rather than the clinic tomorrow. We had plans to go to Kokrobite Beach that afternoon for a few days. And we both felt the beach would do as much for our health as a doctor. Allen had sent us an e-mail while we were in Dakar, telling us to head for Kokrobite. “Not too much Accra,” he warned. I understand.

We found our way to the cardiothoracic center in Accra and were pleased to discover the nurse on duty had dealt with SOS before. “Usually they call us to let us know you are coming,” she told us before directing us to have a seat in the small office that doubles as the nurses' station. The place was drab. The building was built fifty years ago or more and not maintained since. A television on the wall was tuned to Emmanuel TV. A Nigerian preacher was healing people with a few words and the power of God. Breached babies were being born safely as a result. “Not a good sign,” I thought to myself. But when somebody came to clean the window of the nurses' station, the nurse directed me outside. “The dust is not good for you,” she said.

So we waited. We paced. Annette fell asleep in a plastic lawn chair out front. We waited in the pharmacy which had air conditioning and six dozen boxes marked “keep under 25 degrees.” I would check with the nurse periodically. She had called the doctor. He should be here soon. We waited for about two hours. Although neither of us were feeling well, we were prepared to wait for up to five hours or so. So, two hours wasn't bad.

The doctor was a young Ghanaian man, maybe 30. He wore blue jeans and a Chelsea Football Club jersey. He called us in separately. He was very clinical. He interviewed me and took notes on a blank piece of paper. The only thing that got a rise out of him was my response to his question, “have you been having any fever.”

“It's hard to tell,” I told him, “since it is so hot.” He laughed and asked if I have been having chills. “No.”

We left without having taken a malaria test, to my surprise. Instead we left with a good supply of drugs, the primary one being Augmentin, a combination of amoxicillin and clavulanic acid. Twice a day with meals for five to seven days.

So, we took one with lunch, checked out of our hotel and caught a taxi to Kokrobite. We soon traded in the smoke-filled roads of Accra with their street vendors hawking bags of plantain chips and water from bowls on their head to washed out dirt roads. Finally, the taxi reached the end of the road. It was Big Milly's – a backpacker's resort laid out along the white sand beaches of Kokrobite. On the beach just outside of the gates, locals sell Bob Marley and Haile Selassie t-shirts, kebabs and skirts around several beached wooden boats. Several guys are refurbishing one of them, chiseling away slowly at the corner. Several other guys are carefully picking through fishing nets.

Annette's spirits and health seems to pick up upon arrival and she walks the beach. I go swimming in the ocean, hoping the air and sea will help dry out my sinuses. I end up sitting on a towel on the beach shivering. It is warm out. It seems I only have the worst symptoms right before and right after I see the doctor. I lie down at 7 p.m., excited for a couple of days of rest to restore my health. I lie under a mosquito net and try to sleep. My head just gets warmer. Soon, I feel like an oven roasting. As I try to sleep, I find myself in a half-awake dreamlike state. My mind thinks about malaria and concludes nobody recommended the test because it was expensive. I decide I will get a room with air conditioning tomorrow.

I descend further into the night. I don't want to be here. I wish I was home. I cannot take Africa. I haven't slept a good night since we went south of the Sahara. This is too rough. I look at the Indikra symbols on the wall. There are the two crocodiles who fight over food but share a stomach, a statement about greediness. They are looking at me. There is the ladder of death that everybody must climb. I decide I will be horrible at dying, given how much of a wimp I am when something is wrong with my health.

I descend further into the night. It is now dark outside our hut. Seems like it has been that way for hours. It all seems to be a complicated quest to get sleep. It is a puzzle I cannot solve. Like a rubix cubic of time and space. I don't understand the construct. But I must in order to sleep. I have to solve this riddle to reach the peaceful sleep that I so need on the other side. I feel desperate, hopeless. The riddle operates outside of space and time. It is like a koan or a chinese finger trap. The harder I try the hotter my fever gets and the more miserable I feel. I feel like I have been at it for hours, trapped in this sweaty sleepless place in the far reaches of my mind and the world. It must be the fever. Or the heat. Or the malaria medication.

Annette gets up to use the bathroom. I think to myself that I will lie here until daylight. The morning always brings some coolness and rest at the end of a hot sleepless night.

“It is only eleven o'clock.”

“That's impossible.” I am sure I have been lying here for six or eight hours. So, I get up to use the bathroom and have a drink of water. I wonder what I will do this night and when my fever will break.

Annette turns up the fan, which provides a hint of a breeze in the room. I lie back down to accept my fate of fever and misery for however long I will need to endure it.

Ten hours. In and out of sleep. In and out of fever. In and out of reality. But the morning brings coolness. And I feel better than I did the night before, which is always a good sign. And the following day I feel almost 100% again, ready to continue the journey.