however, make two excursions out into the world. We got rice soup for
breakfast, accompanied by a single dose of antibiotics for the sick
one. Then we both slept for most of the day - I think Robert is
poisoning me and making me feel bad too so that I won't go have fun
without him, but my tummy troubles pale in comparison to his. We made
our second excursion in the late afternoon for a second soup, this
time with noodles. This system is a vast improvement from me having to
go into town alone to try to convince shops to pack up soup to take
away.
After dinner, however, Robert started feeling pretty crappy again. We
broke out the malaria test kit and used the reliable thermometer test
strip (it uses mood ring technology from the eighties!) to check
Robert's temp. Basically I held the strip of plastic against his
forehead for a minute. In less than ten seconds, the box next to 102.8
turned yellow/brown, ironic choice of colors, but I waited the time
out before telling Robert the bad news. We had been hopeful that "at
least he didn't have a fever," which could spell real trouble. Fever
also is a malaria indicator, so despite our doubts that stomach
trouble accompanied malaria, we tested him for malaria.
If he wasn't sick, this would have been a fun experience. I also
realize now that I neglected to capture the moment on film, perhaps I
cared more about whether my traveling companion actually had
malaria... We opened up the box, read the confusing directions and
then Nurse Jenn performed the test. It is a blood test, so we had to
lance his finger and milk some blood (actually quite a bit, compared
to a blood sugar test), but he was a champ about it. You collect the
blood in this small plastic capillary tube and then drop it onto a a
test strip, which looks like a pregnancy pee strip, but smaller. The
test was almost derailed when we got to the step that involved cutting
a sealed plastic pipet open to squirt out a reagent, but determined
use of the fingernail clippers prevailed. (why do we still not have a
knife??) Then you wait. It didn't take long though: a control line
appeared, indicating we performed the test correctly, but no other
lines appeared, giving him a clean bill of health, aside from the
102.8 fever. (I don't actually trust the thermometer strip worth a
damn, but he might have had a small fever.)
For now, we will hydrate and wait for the beefy antibiotics to kill
whatever has taken up residence in his gut. We have also started using
the handy 1-10 scale of crappy feelingness. He is at a three at the
time of writing this, but spiked to an 8 last night pre-malaria test.
His sickness seems to be proceeding via fits and starts, but so long
as it is just his guts and he keeps smiling every now and again, he
will probably be okay. That is my official opinion at least.
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