I felt mostly better after a day or
two, with the exception of a horrible cough that has been keeping me,
and my bure-mates, awake at night. One night, I had just obtained
some cough medicine and had taken a dose, but it didn't help, so I
took a second dose... which wasn't the greatest decision because made me quite loopy but didn't seem to help
the coughing much at all. I was coughing so much in bed that I grabbed my pillow and my
water bottle and a blanket and my phone, and relocated to a
newly-constructed empty bure at 1:00 in the morning, to avoid disturbing people.
But soon after
I lay down, I received a phone call from one of my managers in town that a
student was sick and had just thrown up in her bed. The student, of course, had
texted home to the states, and the parents contacted the manager to
tell her to help the girl, but they had no information on where she was. So I walked around from bure to bure,
looking for lights on in bathrooms, walking through rooms, no doubt
scaring teenagers half to death by entering their room in the middle
of the night and whispering "is anyone sick?" with my hoarse voice, and stumbling
over their things in the dark in my cough-syrup-drunken state, checking their bathrooms for sick
people lying on the floor.
Finally, a student came walking down
the pathway and said "a girl in my bure threw up."
"Oh, I've been looking for her! Thank you!" I had my
med kit with me, so I went into her room and brought her into my
temporary, solitary bure so we could talk without disturbing her roommates, and I made her drink a bottle of water and take some electrolytes and I
took her temperature (which was normal) and checked in with my
manager... who then said "wait, are you sure you're with Mary?"
and I said "no, I'm with Ashley!" and we realized I had
found the wrong girl vomiting in the night.
Finally, I found Mary (fake names, obviously),
who was located right next door to the bure I had been in when I got
the call in the first place. She was literally the closest student to me on the whole
base, but instead of opening the window and waving at me, she sent a
message that went across the entire planet to get to me, and it took
me an hour to find her next door. (Cue Bryan saying what an amazing world we live in. At the time, it was more annoying than amazing.)
She was fine by the time I found her,
but we went through the same drill: water, electrolytes, temperature.
(Both girls sat out activities the next day to rest and recover. They both were fine after a day of rest and rehydration. I can't tell you how often this happens. Drink water, people!)
So, that night I got 2 hours of sleep.
Got to bed at around 3:30AM, called Bryan again as I was falling asleep. He answered because
it was like noon where he was, and I talked to him while probably a
little delirious from sleep deprivation, sickness, and cough syrup. But I didn't sleep soundly at all. I managed to squeeze in an hour long nap the next day, but it was a rough day.
Last night, [Note: this was originally written Thursday, so it was Wednesday night] I was coughing even more incessantly. It was worse than ever, almost constant. I had to leave my bure again, but the bure from before was now occupied so I slept on a chair in the
lodge, so that I wasn't laying flat on my back. But again, probably
two hours of actual, real sleep.
So, now I'm at the doctor. A student
needed to see a doctor due to a pulled ligament or something, but I
also managed to get a walk-in appointment for myself. The doctor
gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and another medicine to open
up my airways. We'll see if that helps.
And that is why I am in the waiting
room of a Fijian health clinic.
UPDATE: I'm doing MUCH better. The medicines have actually seemed to help quite a bit, quite quickly. One of them is a cough "elixir" which looks and tastes an awful lot like the bubble mixture you blow bubbles with as a kid. Not complaining.
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