Wednesday, August 12, 2009

unfortunately aquainted with local fauna

Sorry for being so slow with posting. I have a great but exhausting new job (more on that soon) and Petra's been traveling nearly constantly for work.

On top of that, I've made a rather unfortunate recent acquaintance with the delightful local fauna 'giardia lamblia', which had me wracked for almost two weeks with such horrid fevers and ...other violent disturbances of the body that the hospital was, in succession, convinced I had 1) swine flu, 2) dengue fever, 3) malaria, and then when tests showed I had none of these, 4) a mysterious virus from which they wished me the best in recovering from on my own and sent me home. Of course, it was not a virus, but was eventually accurately diagnosed by Dr. Petra as good old giardia, which I could have just as easily got in my backyard in Connecticut, and was swiftly cured with a blitz of giardia-intended antibiotics. I'm now trying to build up my strength again and recover from the antibiotics. Ironic, really, that the doctors got it so wrong, since the usual modus operandi at hospitals here is to just give everyone massive does of antibiotics regardless, assuming it will help with something even if not your main complaint. The one time they don't do that is the one time it would have really helped. Petra has been an absolutely angelic nurse, waking me up every three hours (nighttime included) to make sure I drink enough water and have something in my belly, and has read me more than 1000 pages of 17th century British philosophical and political intrigues.

Perhaps not particularly exciting to recount, here, but from the point of view of my poor body it's been a quite dramatic few weeks.