Ordered Chaos

Street outside of our house.

After an inadvertent tour of Nairobi medical facilities, I’m back in the classroom getting my teach on. As you may have heard, my stomach went to battle with little Kenyan critters, and sadly lost. What started as a nauseous feeling at the end of the school day on Friday quickly turned to a need to vomit while napping by myself at home. My bathroom pursuit quickly turned downward, literally, as I got light headed, fell, and smacked the back of my head on the concrete floor. Blacked out for a second (or a few minutes…who knows), I finally came to, seemingly lost in the house. My thought to find my phone on the bed to call my housemates took me on another ride to the floor, this time smacking the front of my head on the floor. That’s where I threw in the towel, laid on the floor to wait for my housemates to return, and began to sweat like, well…like something that sweats a helluva lot.

My roommates returned from the supermarket and rushed quickly to me as I lay there a soaking mess. A cab was called, I was hauled into the car, and we drove to Shalom Hospital near Kitengela. We were greeted by hospital staff with blank stares that seemed to silently say, “We don’t see sick people here.” Though unimpressed, I desperately needed help, so they pricked my finger and that was about it. At least until some members of Fadhili Community (our organization) called and told us to go to the Nairobi Hospital.

The smile on my face contrasts the civil war in belly.

Once again, I was whisked into the cab, laid down in the back seat and tried to subdue my growing urge to vomit. The “fresh” air of car exhaust and burning rubbish outside sure didn’t do me any favors. Upon arrival at the Nairobi Hospital, I fought the cab driver’s suggestions that I stay in the car and crawled out onto the parking lot. When my British roommate, Stevie, placed a bag under my face, it seemed to serve as a cue to vomit…so I did, filling the entire bag.

The Dream Team, from left to right: House Mom Lucy, Fadhili Worker Christabel, British Roommate Stevie, Yours Truly

The rest of the story I will abbreviate – we arrived at 8pm and I wasn’t admitted until 4am. I had an IV put in that fed me fluids and a pretty nice cocktail of other house specials. All in all, I was in the hospital for just under two days with a bacterial infection. The saving grace of the colossal waiting time in the observation room was the private suite I was admitted to. The one they tried to charge me for twice. Bastards. I showed them.

Home, sweet home!

It was great to come back home on Sunday and sleep on my malformed sponge mattress whilst tangled in the spider web of a mosquito net. Even better was going back to school today, to teach the kids math and have them give us a “propuh” lesson in Kiswahili.

On our walk to school.

Happily back in school.