Man typhoid can kill you right?

 

            So let me just get this straight with everyone, and clearly express to myself what has been happening to me while I was sick and how things progressed and turned out.

I began having bad diarrhea 2 days before my birthday (feb 14^th) about 4-6 times a day. I was still going to ministry and we were staying outside of a town called Homa Bay in “the bush” at an old woman’s house called Mama Mary Opiyo. It continued happening for some time off and on after that week ended until around February 24^th or so… the day after my birthday on the 15^th I launched into feeling even worse because our water situation wasn’t too great, to say the least and I was very dehydrated and vomited 3 times that day. The day before I had gone to a doctor in Homa Bay and he diagnosed me with worms or parasites which is a simple medication process to get rid of them but when the symptoms continued I didn’t know what to do but pray.

            In Homa Bay I just got progressively worse and more and more tired (still going to ministry and God was moving like crazy I even have huge testimonies about what happened). By the end of that week I was ready to head back to the base to get some rest, we headed back on a Sunday and the day after I went to our doctor in Mbita. By this point I had checked in my symptoms with every opinion with anyone who knew anything about common sicknesses around here and every symptom not only pointed to typhoid but I had EVERY single symptom of typhoid mild and severe, symptoms which were: pooping 4-5 times a day, stomach pains that feel Very tight, loss of appetite, headache, dizziness, strong muscle aches and pains, weakness, tiredness, and at night the symptoms would almost double according to how typhoid usually does making it very hard to sleep at night.

To the Doctor: Monday Feb 22^nd

            Agrees I may have typhoid according to my symptoms and gives me 5 and ½ days of anti-biotics along with ibuprofen to keep the symptoms down. Now someone tells me 2 days after I started on these medications after 2 nights of barely sleep, sweats, shaking, fever, and bathroom rushes that on anti biotics that it feels worse than off of them…. And by the 3^rd or 4^th day on them my symptoms should peak and my fever will break and start getting better from there.

Day 4 and 5 on the medicine

            By day 4 my fever did break in the night and I was shaking like crazy for about 2 hours just trying to calm my body down along with hardcore stomach pains. And I was looking forward to the next day, but the symptoms seemed to get even worse after I thought they had peaked, and by day 5 I didn’t even want to leave the house at all. I was so worn out from my body just fighting itself.

God showed up

            I’m not sure what made me go down for dinner because I wasn’t going to eat but I knew that there was a doctor coming from the states, I didn’t think much of it… so I went down feeling pretty out of it and sat down and met the doctors assistant who was with him (they are both named Dr. doug the assistant they call waldo). I told him my symptoms and what had gone on for the past 2 weeks and he said I needed to see the doctor as soon as he came up. They had a fire going and it started raining because my body had been maintaining a fever for about a week it was hard for my body to keep warm even with my hands inches from the fire I could NOT get warm. The doctor walked in and very doctorly said “you look very pale come tell me what’s going on with you”, and as we walked outside if my health had a metaphorical floor under it, if it wasn’t already taken out from under me it was after we stepped out of the door. He asked me to list off my symptoms and how long they had been happening and out of habit I started responding, and then I stumbled out the words ‘I have to sit down NOW’ as my vision went totally black, I fumbled for a chair and as soon as my butt hit the chair I felt vomit coming up and I jumped up (vision still dark) and took two steps towards the door and threw my head out vomiting. The doctor started yelling commands at his helper to get his things to get me some help right then and there after I threw up (which was bad because typhoid is contagious through vomit) he layed me down on a bench and loaded up a very expensive and the most powerful medication that I needed in my butt… It was the most painful shot I have ever gotten in my life (he days later said he had typhoid from being so close to me when vomiting and had to give himself the same shot and compared it to getting kicked by a horse) after 10 minutes of rolling around groaning he gave me another shot for my vomiting and pooping and about 15 mins later I already felt 100 times better than the nothing I was at before that. He took some checkups with some equipment and told me how severe my situation was, that I didn’t just have typhoid bacteria which is what I was being treated for with those “baby medicines” but I have the actual typhoid which had paralyzed my lympnodes in my stomach that gave me no chance to fight back the illness and at any moment my intestines could have burst, leading to death…God is Good …. Down to the very moment that he stood me infront of that doctor he said john you’re not good but I am the great physician and I am here to take care of you and at that moment I needed that. They then rushed me to a clinic with a doctor who studied in the London school of medicine. To get some I.V.s of fluid and Levequin , very strong dose of medicine to help fight the bacteria. They left the tube in my arm wrapped me sent me home to come the next day, for another dose. I already felt much better, fever not gone, headache is there, but stomach doesn’t feel so tight. Got some “better” sleep haha. All that the doctors did for me turned out to be completely free… If all this wasn’t enough.

Friday Feb 26^th

            I went out with the doctors on a boat ride, still didn’t feel good at all, pooped off the side of the boat on our hour long ride. We were going to an island called Mfangano to pass out mosquito nets as part of his short mission trip here, they last 7 years are almost indestructible (short of a knife) and in his 3 years passing them out he has used them to save 17,000 lives of small children under 5 and mothers who before that were dying of malaria. Throughout the day I realized that I was having an allergic reaction to all the strong drugs that they had given me and as we got back I looked more thoroughly to find them covering EVERY inch of my body almost. By the time dinner came around my lip started to swell up and it got pretty big, it was perfect because we had planned for a big formal dinner with everyone dressed up having a lot of doctors and their families come. And I had sores all over me with a swollen lip looking like a goofball, everyone was worried, I thought it was funny.

To keep this from getting any longer…

As of today March 1^st it is the first day I have had relatively free of pain, and gone through pretty normal, even though I still have to take it easy for 3-4 days I am feeling much better.

These couple of doctors… saved my life!!! God is good, all the time.

            There were many times that I felt very helpless, BUT not hopeless throughout this whole time there was never a single moment where I didn’t trust that God had me in his hands I knew for a fact this is not how I was supposed to die so I was confident that whenever God chose for this situation to turn around that it would. In the meantime I felt like it was a time to rejoice (John is smiling at you right now) and a time of testing to see how faithful I really was to God and honestly I thought it was really fun that sleep and food had a lot less value, less sleep meant more bible reading time ( I would usually get 2-3 hours a night of sleep for around 9 days straight). And less food just meant less walking down to the dining hall and I could stay in my room and…. Read the bible some more and journal a bit more, something that I started doing on this trip that I always thought was a dumb idea and now I have 3 extra journals I picked up on the way, right?