It's been a while since I've talked about how Hal and I are doing on the medical front. Really, I haven't talked about it since my bout with dengue.
Well this past week Hal and I both had a bit of medical trouble. Really for living in a third world country where volunteers have had giardia a bunch of times or dysentery, we've been pretty lucky. I'm just going to let you know now, I have no problem talking about poo, and I hope you don't either, or you might not want to read part of this post. But hey, if I'm accurately portraying our life out there, then I gotta talk about poo, right?
Well, it all started when I called to schedule our mid-service physicals, and I just mentioned to my Khmer PCMO (medical officer) that I had a bad bout of diarrhea...for 3 weeks. She said it sounded like I had giardia. Ok, so I took the meds. Bad idea. They made me feel horrible. Down right horrible They made me nauseous, and I started running a low grade fever.
This was soon overshadowed by what happened to Hal. So let me set the scene. Hal was in the living room teaching our host family English. He really pushes them on pronunciation, and he was teaching them the difference between tongue and tong. He thought, "oh they have a tong in the kitchen, what a great object lesson, I'll go grab it. Let's just jump over this hammock to make it to the kitchen." Bad idea. His feet didn't clear the hammock and they swung up in the air propelling his upper body to the ground. He landed straight armed on his right arm.
At first he was fine, and then he was not fine. His arm started to swell and was really painful. We went to our "hospital" here in town, and Mr X-Ray, our host dad, took x-rays of Hal's bent arm, and said it wasn't broken. Well, Hal couldn't straighten his arm...so the PCMO said come to Phnom Penh. After a series of doctors and x-rays and reviews they found a fracture in the radial head of his elbow. Luckily it is a clean break, and all he needs is a sling for two weeks and he should be alright. Thank goodness!
Now back to poo. I didn't have giardia, so while we were in Phnom Penh for an unexpected week I had to give not one, but three poo samples. Have you ever tried pooing in a cup that they use for urine samples? It's not so easy, but it's better than pooping on a plate. So they couldn't find anything in my poo that would be causing almost a month of diarrhea. Finally on the last sample they discovered that I had way too much yeast in my poo. Yeah I didn't know that you were supposed to have yeast in your poo. Anyway, the awesome PCMO gave me probiotics to help reestablish the level of yeast and flora in my intestinal track, and I got awesome clay to drink to rid my body of toxins. It's a real thing, drinking clay, see?
Now we're both on the mend thank goodness, send good thoughts our way so we'll be able to heal and go on vacation next week!
Well this past week Hal and I both had a bit of medical trouble. Really for living in a third world country where volunteers have had giardia a bunch of times or dysentery, we've been pretty lucky. I'm just going to let you know now, I have no problem talking about poo, and I hope you don't either, or you might not want to read part of this post. But hey, if I'm accurately portraying our life out there, then I gotta talk about poo, right?
Well, it all started when I called to schedule our mid-service physicals, and I just mentioned to my Khmer PCMO (medical officer) that I had a bad bout of diarrhea...for 3 weeks. She said it sounded like I had giardia. Ok, so I took the meds. Bad idea. They made me feel horrible. Down right horrible They made me nauseous, and I started running a low grade fever.
This was soon overshadowed by what happened to Hal. So let me set the scene. Hal was in the living room teaching our host family English. He really pushes them on pronunciation, and he was teaching them the difference between tongue and tong. He thought, "oh they have a tong in the kitchen, what a great object lesson, I'll go grab it. Let's just jump over this hammock to make it to the kitchen." Bad idea. His feet didn't clear the hammock and they swung up in the air propelling his upper body to the ground. He landed straight armed on his right arm.
At first he was fine, and then he was not fine. His arm started to swell and was really painful. We went to our "hospital" here in town, and Mr X-Ray, our host dad, took x-rays of Hal's bent arm, and said it wasn't broken. Well, Hal couldn't straighten his arm...so the PCMO said come to Phnom Penh. After a series of doctors and x-rays and reviews they found a fracture in the radial head of his elbow. Luckily it is a clean break, and all he needs is a sling for two weeks and he should be alright. Thank goodness!
Now back to poo. I didn't have giardia, so while we were in Phnom Penh for an unexpected week I had to give not one, but three poo samples. Have you ever tried pooing in a cup that they use for urine samples? It's not so easy, but it's better than pooping on a plate. So they couldn't find anything in my poo that would be causing almost a month of diarrhea. Finally on the last sample they discovered that I had way too much yeast in my poo. Yeah I didn't know that you were supposed to have yeast in your poo. Anyway, the awesome PCMO gave me probiotics to help reestablish the level of yeast and flora in my intestinal track, and I got awesome clay to drink to rid my body of toxins. It's a real thing, drinking clay, see?
Now we're both on the mend thank goodness, send good thoughts our way so we'll be able to heal and go on vacation next week!
3 comments:
Ok I didn't giggle the whole time until I read, "it's better than pooping on a plate." Haha!
That sounds like a whole lot of fun!
I'm glad you guys are on the mend!
oh wow...at least you're both getting better. and as amy mentioned it, i started giggling when i read "it's better tha pooping on a plate". well, i laughed out loud actually. thank you for the visual. but it was necessary.
feel better SOOOOOOON!
I've had to take those probiotics before. Trust me you'll start feeling better in no time. They told me it was caused of the anti biotics depleting the probiotics.
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