Sick in Laos

My dear readers, I’m sure you’ve noticed the two day hiatus in blog posts. I hope you did not think I had forgotten or abandoned you. No, I would never be so cruel. Truthfully, I’ve been sick. Extremely sick. It seems Laos wanted to welcome me with a terrible 24-hour virus of some sort.

Friday started off as a perfectly normal day. I got up, went to work, had a skype meeting (my very first – it’s having a phone/video conference over the internet through a service called Skype), and read more of the materials on our project. It had not rained during the night so the temperature soared to unbelievable highs. It seems you should always pray for rain at night in Laos or you will bake to death in the heat the next day. I suppose a few things banded together to make me susceptible to getting ill. First, I was still a bit tired from our travels. Second, this poor California/Oregon body is not accustomed to extreme heat. Third, at lunch they accidently put egg in my meal and I was forced to pick it out (but you know in these situations it is nearly impossible to get out all the egg). All-in-all, I was primed to get sick. I started to feel bad after lunch with some stomach cramps and general achiness. At 4 o’clock I admitted I wasn’t feeling well and went home early.

At home I got worse very quickly. The group got back from the office at 5 pm (when I was still feeling “ok”) and went out for happy hour to watch the opening game of football, aka soccer. I developed a fever soon after that and walked to a pharmacy three blocks away to get some medicine. I must have looked quite a sight at that point (I have the terrible reaction of crying when I’m sick, so my nose was stuffy and eyes were red). The man who sold me my medicine asked how long I had been in Laos and when I said five days, gave a little chuckle. I got back home, upset that I couldn’t read my thermometer (it’s all in Celsius, which is completely inscrutable to me), and laid down for a rest. I was soon extremely sick, with a fever and the worst skin ache/sensitivity ever. I’ve never felt anything quite like it and hope to never feel it again. Every inch of my body hurt and even the air felt harsh against my skin, which meant I couldn’t stand having either the fan or A/C on. It was terrible and soon I was forced to call the group.

I called Zenia, who gave the phone to Talia. It seems Talia had the same thing when she first came to Laos. About five days after arriving she got an extreme fever, felt generally awful, but was better in 24-hours. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to wait it out. My group kept calling me every 20 minutes to make sure I didn’t get any worse and to see if I needed anything. Those hours were awful and all I could think about was how I wished I could be home and that I had never come to Thailand or Laos, but had stayed safely in Portland for the summer. My fever finally broke around 9 pm, but the other side-effects remained through the night, interrupting my sleep and causing misery.

I awoke yesterday feeling a great deal better, but still unwell. I basically spent the whole day in bed. The others went out for a bit in the morning and then came back in the early afternoon as we had a housewarming party scheduled for 4 pm. I stayed in my room during the party, watching Pride and Prejudice on my computer (although I slept through bits of it) and finally got to sleep around 10 pm. I slept through the night until 7:30 this morning and am now feeling MUCH better, although very weak. I haven’t eaten since lunch on Friday (it’s now Sunday morning), although I tried several times (food made me nauseous). JJ was good enough to make me a high calorie energy drink last night to get some energy into my system and this morning I am going to try to eat some chicken noodle soup.

While I am no longer wishing I had never come, I can’t help but admit that I wish I was at home right now and under the tender, loving care of my family. I hate being sick under any circumstances, but if I am going to be sick, I would rather have my family care for me during that time. *Sigh* But this will be over soon and while not forgotten (it would be impossible to forget), hopefully it won’t occur again and I will manage the rest of my trip without any major ailment. Send good thoughts my way for that outcome. I miss you all!

P.S. Since I last wrote my blog (Sunday morning, about three hours before walking to Joma, the nearest internet café to our house) I have had one huge, pick-me-up experience. Zenia went out around 10 am to go to the Morning Market to pick up a backpack for use during our bike riding trips (oh yes, we got our bikes on Friday afternoon!), while I stayed home and took an hour long nap. When she got back, we packed our stuff up and got ready to go to Joma. We had only walked about a block from our house when we saw Lamnleugn on her motorbike. She stopped when she saw us and said she had been driving to our house to check on me. She gave me a small bag of groceries, filled with treats to help me get better including orange juice, croissants, other bread treats, and some milk. I was told that last night at the party she and Chinda were particularly worried about me and continuously asked if I was ok and offered to take me to the doctor if I needed to go.

Hearing this and seeing Lamnleugn’s concern first-hand made me feel so good and put a new spring in my step. We quickly took the groceries back to the house and set out again, this time in a slight drizzle that had sprung up. It was beautiful walking down the sidewalk (there are actually sidewalks in Vientiane – although unused – as opposed to Chiang Mai, which sports 15 feet of sidewalk and then randomly stops so pedestrians are forced to walk in the roads) with rain splashing against my legs and the breeze cooled by the falling water. As I was coming down the stairs toward Joma, I passed a row of flowers and at least a dozen butterflies flew up from the plants to dance around the blossoms, as if to say, “Feel better Lauren, Vientiane wants you to be happy here.” I hope that is what they were saying and I hope my time in Vientiane goes well in the future.