My trip home went well, for the most part. It was bittersweet in an odd way. I went to Rhode Island, the tiny, flat, yet family inhabited New England state that kept up with its dreary winter reputation and rained most of the time I was there, reminding me of why I moved away 8 1/2 years ago. It was great to see my family and a few friends while there, but my sense of home is elsewhere now, migrated west, and I couldn't help but continuously thinking "God this weather blows". Clearing customs on New Year's Eve in Boston I walked out into an airport arrival hall filled with some of the finer things in life: Starbucks Coffee, Taco Hell, Manchu Wok, my Mom, and Elizabeth. It was an emotional welcome back into the "free" world. Elizabeth came from Michigan to visit for a few days and I was excited to have the opportunity to show her around a bit here and there, though even that was a bit depressing...
"Ok, if you look out there babe, and if it wasn't rainy and foggy, and sleeting and blowing 35 knots, you'd see the Beavertail Lighthouse, as it is only 30 feet in front of us right now I believe...oooh I think I just saw it's flash thru the mist...can you hear it now?"
"Yep, I sure can....oooh, its so pretty Jesse. I can almost imagine what it looks like."
"I know, I know, its amazing huh!?"
That basically left us to taking stupid pictures.
All in all we made the best of it and had a good time. My family is doing well and my brother is getting too many requests for interviews from too many top Veterinary Colleges that I'm left feeling like the dunce of the family. Thanks Nick. There was much gluttony, beer consumption and rainy day napping.
On one of the last few days of my visit home I woke up in the middle of the night to a pain in my leg. Scratching revealed that a tiny deer tick was lodged in my calf, which I quickly removed and went back to sleep. The next day the bite was swollen and infected, and even later in the afternoon I developed unbelievable heartburn, causing pain even when I drank a glass of water. A doctor prescribed me Amoxicillin at my persistent request, as I thought for sure, and with good reason, this was round two for me with Lyme's disease. The vile, horse sized, pink pills went down the hatch repeatedly, and for 4 days I got worse and worse. I spent a day in Michigan with Elizabeth and her family focusing the whole time on just staying conscious, and wishing she'd find some reason to just deny my ability to get on the Africa bound airplane that night, and keep me there. I even went so far as to begin daydreaming about getting mugged and losing my passport to a thieve outside of Detroit. Aah, yes, its good to have a dream. But Elizabeth failed to come up with a halting reason to keep me there, and no masked mad man in a cape came and violently demanded my passport and cash in a silly French accent. Thanks for nothing to both of you!
One nice January evening in R.I.
So I hopped...actually sluggishly crawled aboard Northwest Flight 50 bound for Paris on Thursday night and began what I hope will be the most painful flight I ever have to experience. I'm sure I had the flight attendants concerned when, shivering uncontrollably, I asked them to turn up the heat while I was wrapped in my winter jacket, a scarf, mittens (thank you Jen!), a hat, and 4 blankets. Everyone else wore short sleeve shirts and I cursed them silently for it. I resolved to drug myself up with sleeping pills and pain relievers, something I never do, and tried, and tried and tried to fall asleep. (Someone ring the big red annoying buzzer please.) Sleep did not visit Jesse that night, instead a fat, hairy black man did, who Jesse feverishly contemplated killing when he pushed Jesse's feet off the seat next to him. Killing someone seems like such a great way to make you feel better when you're sick like that.
Nine hours later we landed in Paris and the drugs, coupled with sickness and sleep deprivation, finally kicked in. I swayed and wobbled thru the people and corridors, practically seeing double, until I got to somewhere close to my gate. I found an empty seat and collapsed, sleeping for almost 5 hours, waking up only, and thankfully, to the sound of my flight's boarding call, finding myself being cautiously regarded and stared at the way 'the bearded man-eating lady from Borneo' might be due to the large pool of drool I'd generously deposited on the seat where my head lay. A "Sorry ladies, he's taken!" sign would have come in real handy. To ice the cake, I was handed the last middle seat between two stinky guys for the 6 hour flight back down over the Sahara to the oh-so-inviting quasi state of Chad.
I slept fitfully that night and woke up late to the ladies arriving in N'djamena with the Otter to pick up groceries, money and me, and was greeted with Georgiana's endearing words of "Wow, you look like shit!". Thanks, its nice to see you too.
My head continued to threaten explosion, my face swelled like a chipmunk (which seemed to kinda turn the monkey on...hmm) my joints ached and my knees gave out at one point causing me to feign a random shoe retying in the middle of our living room. Needless to say, I was in pain and not having fun, wishing I was still in someone's arms. I resolved to take the Malaria Self Test, and disappeared into my room with it.
After struggling to comprehend the directions for what seemed like hours, I finally worked out the complex sequence of events: 1. Prick finger, 2. Drop blood in tiny hole, 3. Wait 15 minutes for two red lines to appear or not appear. No problem.
Wrong. Enter Worlds Biggest Sissy. Even though I felt like I was on the verge of spontaneous combustion, and that my eyes were just itching to try things on their own and pop out of my head, my pansy-ass could not bring itself to prick a significant hole in my finger. For 20 minutes I pricked away at each finger of each hand with a safety pin, just deep enough to make a hole, but not deep enough to draw more than a fleck of blood. When this failed I moved to my arm, first my bicep then my forearm. Then came the back of my hand. I was on the verge of frustrated tears when I had an epiphany...a beam of light burst thru the ceiling and a falsetto chorus sang somewhere nearby. I remembered that I always cut myself shaving, always, and that surely I could get enough blood from that. I ripped off the blankets and hit the bathroom, shivering and shaving as recklessly as I could, hoping my jittery hands would cause a cut deep enough to garnish the much needed home lab sample. It hurt like hell, mainly because in my frenzy I forgot shaving cream, but regardless, January 13th, 2007 marked the first day in his 27 year history that Jesse Archambault has not cut himself in any way, shape or form, while shaving. Depression set in.
A last ditch attempt, to find in the emergency kit, something sharper and more sturdy that I could mount to the wall and impale myself on revealed a hypodermic needle buried beneath band aids. Two minutes later I had the blood sample, and fifteen minutes after that I had the answer: NEGATIVE. Damn! Damn, damn, damn! If I had the energy I’m sure I would’ve punched something. I suddenly had the urge to kill that guy on the airplane again.
Further research revealed that the 'Fisher Price do it at home' kit tested for only one type of malaria, the Plasmodium (P.) falciparum
strain, but that 2 others, the Plasmodium Vivax
and Plasmodium givajessedachills strains existed. After consulting with the French base doctor, the women here and of course, Not Lloyd it was decided that I have one of the other strains and should immediately begin treatment before possible liver damage or worse occurred. I was more than happy to oblige.
About 12 hours after taking my first crazy-toxic, kill all the critters in you bloodstream pills, I noticed an extreme improvement. The drugs made me a bit woozy and lightheaded, though it could have been the heroine I was still doing. Soon I found myself no longer taking 14 Advil a day to prevent my eyeballs from popping out of my head and recovered much of my strength. Long story short, I'm feeling much better now.
The mist that covered most days at home:
1 comment:
Hey Jesse, it is very interesting to read your blog. Glad to hear that everything is going as well as could be expected out there, much respect to you and your work out there, stay safe.
Dan Johnston
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