Scotland plans

Guys, I'm leaving my site in a day and a half for my dream vacation. I can't even believe it. A lot of it has been planned last minute since not much happened while I had dengue, but it's all sort of come to together which is fantastic.

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We've changed our plans a little bit and will be spending 2 days in Glasgow, 2 days in Edinburgh, and then a week at a house rental north west of Glasgow. I really want to see Loch Ness, Glencoe, and Isle of Skye in the highlands. Do you have any recommendations of what to see or do anywhere in Scotland. Have you ever done the activities/castle pass? Is it worth it?

Did I mention that my sister, her husband, and Hal's best friend who we haven't seen in over 8 months are coming to meet us in Scotland? How awesome is that!? I'm really excited to see them, and I'm sure seeing them will make my dream vacation even better.

Adjusting to Back at Site

It's been almost a month since I've been back at site after having dengue, so I thought I'd do a little update about adjusting to life back at site.

Honestly, it was a really hard transition. By the time I was done traveling back to site I was exhausted. Like more exhausted than I've ever felt in my life. I couldn't go to school. I couldn't do anything except lay in bed, nap, and maybe read a book. I don't think I left my room for 2 days. I had been in AC almost constantly for 2 weeks and in that time Cambodia had gotten so much hotter. I had the fan on constantly and felt like I was going to melt away.

My first day back at site one of my co-teachers came to visit me. I teach my private class at her private school. She told me I got dengue because I don't eat enough meat. Right. Then she told me that I should relax at home, and that they found a new teacher for my class. I tried to tell her I could come back. She told me no. I cried for the rest of the day. Honestly, if we hadn't already had this vacation planned I might have ETed at that moment. I remember a COSing volunteer in Thailand told me, "don't make any decisions about your service when you're having a really bad day". I'm glad I didn't ET in that moment. It was just all so overwhelming and emotional for me.

I finally had the energy to show up to teach one class. I didn't even end up teaching. My co-teacher wanted to talk with me and my school director told me I shouldn't be at school, because I just got better and needed to relax. I'm actually glad he told me that, because I really did need to relax, and I think I would have pushed myself otherwise and made my recovery slower. Well, the next week school stopped anyway in preparation for 12th grade testing and Khmer New Year.

I was finally feeling some energy, and had gotten approval for a project, so I went to the school to see my director. It was during testing so most of the teachers were hanging around. I'm glad we ended up going. We got invited to a lot of stuff that day. It finally made me feel apart of the community again after feeling so despondent. My co-teacher asked me to come back to teach my class when school starts up again after Khmer New Year. She's helping me set up my Girls Club also. She even took me to get traditional Khmer wedding clothes made for a family wedding this weekend.

Obviously my adjustment back to site after more than 2 weeks away was really difficult. Everyone seemed to think I was still sick, and I guess I was, but I didn't want them to think that. They've been really nice and helpful though. My host mother has served me chicken more in the last month than all of the previous ones combined. She lights mosquito coils next to me while I eat dinner, and puts the fan on me to blow the mosquitoes away when we relax in the living room. I've had so many people in our community ask me how I'm feeling, and if I'm still sick. It's so nice to see that the Khmer people care about you.

I'm so glad that I didn't make any rash decisions in those first few horrible days. As I've gotten my energy back I've felt a renewed motivation, and I think it's rubbed off on Hal also. I've been able to find projects to work on from home to keep me busy. Hopefully things will really get rolling as soon as we get back from Scotland. I have a good feeling!

Visitors

Hal and I had our first visitors to site recently. It was pretty exciting to show other PCVs around our town, to let them meet our different mings (aunt) and to of course, make western food with them.

Our first visitors were Neysa and Garrett. Neysa was amazing and biked about 26k to get here. We had been planning this food day for months. My sister had sent me the ingredients to make this, and Garrett's mom had sent him a box of our favorite brown sugar and cinnamon pop tarts. While I held my end of the bargain, Garrett ate all of our pop tarts. So I assigned him to make salsa. Off to the market we went. Luckily we had some regular flour, and we discovered olive oil works great in place of the disgusting "butter" we can get in our town. We made our own salsa and tortilla chips.

Of course Bookie had to get in on this action. She likes to be in charge of anything we're doing around the house. She was nice and helped us cut up all of the veggies, and even helped us make the tortillas. We should really teach her to make western food.

This is Garrett saying "wait, is there not going to be enough?"

And since it was too hot for Neysa to bike back, we talked Garrett into staying and we had a lovely little sleepover in our room. We made our special Reindeer Feed. We only had one problem. No matter what we did, the white chocolate would't melt. I'm pretty sure it was more melted in the package from traveling than it was when I was using a double broiler-ish system. We then tried to melt it in the toaster oven. Fail. Finally we poured boiling water over the baked remains, which made it liquid enough to spread over the Chex. The final product was not what we expected, but delicious none the less.

Last week Tony and Maddie came to visit us for the day. Maddie is planning on riding to Vietnam next month and wanted to do some training, so they rode 33k each way to our site. Of course we made a trip to the market and this time we made bruschetta and potato chips.                                                                                                        

Now from writing this post I'm massively hungry. Too bad it's late, and everyone's asleep and I've eaten all of our snacks. This truly is unfortunate. Note to self, don't write food post when you don't have access to western food.

Provincial Spelling Bee

After finishing the spelling bee at my school a week later we headed into the provincial town to compete with 4 other schools in our province. I felt like my students stood a pretty good chance, they had worked hard, and were really smart. I brought 2 10th and 11th grade students with me into the provincial town, and my co-teacher. We didn't have enough funding to pay for transportation, so we all arrived separately. I was a bit nervous one of them wouldn't show up, but we all made it there

In the morning grade 10 competed. There were 10 students total competing for each grade.

Aren't my 10th graders just adorable?

So...something you should know. Cambodians are SUPER competitive. Sometimes they're terrified to answer  a question, in case they get it wrong and look bad in front of other students, but if they know that answer, they're fighting to say it out-loud first. That's a big thing here, appearance and saving face. No one wants to look or be wrong. Anyway, you could see it on their faces the look of terror when they didn't know the word you said, the utter relief when they got it right, and sheer look of cut throat competition when it was another student's turn.

Neither of my 10th graders placed in the competition, but they both did a great job. After lunch the 11th graders competed. 

And guess what....2 hours later we were down to my male 11th grader, and one other student. Check it out.

Ok, well we didn't win, but we came in 2nd!

It felt so good to be a part of a Peace Corps project and to bring students together from different areas in the province. That is, it felt so good until that night I came down with Dengue Fever.

High School Spelling Bee

I have quite a few posts that I was meaning to make in my pre-dengue life, but was too busy to do. So now that I'm exhausted all the time and have more free time since everyone in Cambodia thinks I need to stay home and not work, seeing as I just got better (how different from America), I figured I might as well take advantage of this time and finally do some of those posts.

I'll start with the most recent. The day I came down with dengue we had a provincial spelling bee in my provincial town, but the week before that I had a spelling bee at my High School to decide the winners who would go to the provincial spelling bee. I could take 2 students from grade 10 and 11 to compete.

We had a massive word list. When I did the spelling bee with my private class I did word list one, which contained a lot of three letter words. They didn't do very well as it was easier to mix up words. For the actual spelling bee at my school, and as a province we did word list two which was mostly 4-5 letter words.

At my High School we did the spelling bee on the last day of a testing week, so most of the students weren't at school. While a lot of students didn't show up, the ones who really wanted to compete were there, so that was a plus. The provincial spelling bee was just for grade 10 and 11, but I had a group of 9th graders want to complete, so I let them compete with the 10th graders.

Here are my 9th and 10th graders who came. I only had 1 10th grader show up since they didn't have school that day, but she did awesome, so I was excited. I later did a spelling bee with my 10th grade class to find another winner.

These are most of the 11th graders. We took SO long to get a winner. We were down to the same 4 students  for SO long. We finally made them do 2 words at a time because it was taking so long.

I was SO proud. Two of my private class students won the High School spelling bee. They did such a great job. Stay tuned to see if they won the provincial spelling bee.

Dengue Fever

Are you ready for a really long post about my horrible experience with Dengue Fever? Dengue Fever is also known as "Breakbone Fever", because as I so intelligently explained to my sister, your bones hurt so bad that your leg could break off and you wouldn't even know it. So obviously I'm not the greatest at explaining the disease, so I'll tell you my understanding, and you can read more here, if you want a more scientific explanation.

Dengue Fever is caused when you're bit by the certain mosquito that can carry the Dengue virus. 7-10 days later you begin to show symptoms. Usually it begins with a sudden high fever and body aches. Both of these worsen as the disease takes its course, and are followed by headaches, nausea, and eye aches. The Dengue virus attacks your white blood cells and your platelets, throughout the course of the disease your platelets continually drop, your blood thins, and your liver begins to work overtime. It can take a month or two for your liver function to return to normal, and it can take a month for you to get your energy back to normal after the Dengue virus is gone from your body.

So here is the story of what happened to me when I got Dengue.

Day 1:
 I looked like this:

I started out the day totally fine. I was in my provincial town for a spelling bee (more on that later) and we decided to stay the night to hang out with some friends. That afternoon my hips started aching, but I didn't think anything of it as that happens from time to time. That night my whole body started aching. I took some medicine, I was fine. Fast forward to the middle of the night with the worst body aches I've ever felt and a high fever followed by body chills when the fan was placed in front of me. More medicine, finally fell asleep

Day 2: (platelets 230,000)
My friends finally talked me into calling the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer). She told me to go to my provincial hospital and get my blood drawn. Hal went back to site and packed our bags for Phnom Penh. My friend went to the hospital with me. There were 10 medical staff just staring at me while I had my blood drawn and my friend distracted me by telling me a story about Giraffes (Thanks Garrett!).  There were 12 medical personnel standing around us while we waited for the results. He said my platelets were in the normal range and didn't think I had dengue. By the time we made it back to our friend's house my fever was at 102 and I felt awful. Medical officer told me to come to Phnom Penh in the morning to be tested. My friends tried to test to see if I had malaria. I had my finger poked by the most awful poker ever 5 times, and I couldn't produce enough blood for the test. That night was rough, real rough. I felt like my body was being ripped apart. I just remembering saying to Hal over and over "I can't do this anymore." I remember telling my friend, "as much as I don't want to have Dengue, I hope this is Dengue, because I can't imagine having Dengue and feeling even worse than this."

Day 3:
We just missed the 7am bus to Phnom Penh. Boo. I cried in the bus station over the next 2 hours until the next bus came. The Khmer people gave me very strange looks and kept asking if I was OK. I got on the bus. Not our bus, I got off the bus. We were assigned new seas and we got on the bus. Some people showed up and we had to get off the bus. Hal was mad and was practically yelling at them in Khmer. Next bus, got on and was able to stay on. I ate 2 crackers as the bus left at 9 am. That's all I ate due to nausea. 8 hours later we made it to the PC office. Blood drawn. 5 minutes later was confirmed I had Dengue. I kept hiccuping and the PCMO ran into the room thinking I was going to throw up. Nope, I just hiccup, a lot. Lots of Tylenol. PCMO bought me real tiger balm for my aching back, since every medicine she had was also a blood thinner, which you can't take when you have dengue. Hal rubbed it on my back and I had the best nights sleep of all my dengue experience.

Day 4: (Platelets 100,000)
Still in Phnom Penh. I ate 2 bites of papaya before nausea overtook me. PCMO came to the hotel to draw my blood. They came back to the hotel to give me an IV and tell me my platelets were dropping too fast and they had to send me to Bangkok. I cried. I cried about everything that day. Because of the IV I had to use the bathroom, but I was so nauseous. Every time I used the bathroom I vomited. It was horrible. I had eaten nothing all day, but was still vomiting. This was by far the worst day of my dengue experience.

 They came at 4pm to take us to the airport. Hal was my escort. I couldn't walk. I couldn't sit up straight in the wheelchair. Hal was amazing. He took care of everything. He was so nervous we were never going to get through security because I couldn't sit up. We had no problems getting through the airport. We were so blessed. I thought I was going to die when they wouldn't let me lean my seat back until take off.
We made it though! They were really nice on the Thai side and I was able to be miserable and huddle over in a wheelchair the whole way. There was a man pushing it the whole time who knew where we needed to go, which saved us so much time. He got us into a taxi and we were off to the hospital. Bumrungrad hospital is amazing. It felt like America being there. I went to the ER, got my IV and went to the nicest hospital room I've ever been in.

Day 5: (Platelets 82,000)
This is where the days begin to blend together for me. Every few hours I was interrupted for blood pressure and temperature check. They finally put me on anti-nausea medicine. Hallelujah. I ate my first bites of food.

Day 6: (Platelets 76,000)
I ate for the first time in days. I had a few bites of mashed potatoes. I got excited to eat and ate a bit too much. I had a really rough night with my stomach and didn't sleep much.

Day 7: (Platelets 63,000)
I threw up in the wee hours of the morning. Rough night indeed. They finally got the medication right, and my stomach finally settled down, but I didn't eat anything this day either. Hal was supposed to go back to Cambodia this day, as we had a training meeting, but I was only getting worse and my platelet level was getting dangerous so they let him stay. They gave me mouth wash, I was no longer allowed to brush my teeth or do anything that might lead to bleeding. This is when the itching started, just a slight itching in my hands and feet.

Day 8: (Platelets 53,000)
I was so glad that Hal stayed with me. I was so nervous that I was never going to get better at this point. I could still barely walk. Hal still had to help me to the bathroom every single time. I couldn't shower alone either. Thank goodness for that little chair in the shower. He had to help me with everything at this point, I was very unstable. The itching increased and I was constantly scratching at my hands, feet, and legs.

Day 9: (Platelets 75,000)
Platelets went up. YAY!! I was so excited that my platelets finally came back up that I celebrated by washing my hair for the first time in over a week. I still couldn't sit up straight at this point, so seriously Hal and that shower chair were life savers. I could slowly feel my strength coming back. The itching was really bad this day. I tried not to scratch, but it was driving me nuts.

Day 10: (Platelets 112,000)
I walked to the bathroom for the first time by myself this day. Pretty exciting stuff. My IV came out. I had that IV in for over a week and my hand was hurting and swollen (if you see my hand in the light you can see it is still like one big bruise) I could hold down food and water pretty well at this point. Hal had to go back to Cambodia, which made me really sad. I kept waking up that night expecting him to be asleep on the couch. The itching finally stopped, but because my blood was so thin while I was scratching my legs started to look really gross, the blood had come to the surface of the skin and my legs were splotchy red for days.

Day 11:
I was finally discharged from the hospital this day. I was so emotional this day. I couldn't handle anything without being on the brink of tears. Checking out was real rough for me. They moved me to a hotel across the street from the hospital. It was more of a tiny apartment. When the man led me in, and then left I just bawled. I felt like they were never going to let me leave. I didn't want to be alone. The hotel didn't have wifi, but from my bed, with my hospital internet code I was able to get a tiny bit of internet. Hal told me how to make it to the 7/11 around the corner. Just walking to the 7/11 and back I was exhausted. They weren't lying when they said it takes a while to get your energy back. I spent a really lonely night there, and thanks for Harry Potter 7.1 on the TV I was able to sleep.

Day 12:
I hatched a scheme to try and get home to Cambodia. It didn't work. They wouldn't let me go back. Good thing the movies on the 2 English channels were ones I hadn't seen. The PCMO of medvacs (medically evacuated volunteers) told me there were 2 other medvacs in the hotel. I went to dinner with a volunteer from Mongolia. It was nice to have some company after a lonely day.

Day 13: (Platelets 300,000 finally back in the normal range)
I had my check up with the Dr. at the hospital. I was weighed for the first time, holy cow I had lost 10 pounds. The Dr. cleared me to go back home. I wanted to go back so badly, but PC had to write a report and they thought there wasn't enough time for them to write it and me to make it to the flight. Boo. I met the other medvac from Ukraine, and went to dinner with her and two COSing (close of service) volunteers from Thailand. She was super nice and showed me how to use the sky train.

Day 14:
I went to the PC office in Thailand to pick up my medical record with the medvac from Ukraine. We met another COSing volunteer there. We went to the biggest most fancy mall I've ever been in. I got subway and dunkin doughnuts. Holy cow, we don't have anything like this mall in Cambodia. Good thing, or I don't think PCVs would have any money. I took the sky train to the airport and finally made it back to Cambodia. It was hard not to dance in my seat on the plane when we landed. I was exhausted by the time I made it to the hotel.

Day 15:
I had a check up with the PCMO. I was cleared to go back to site! She and everyone told me I looked so much better, but I just felt exhausted.

So there is an overly long explanation of my experience with Dengue Fever. My case was definitely not the normal. Most volunteers aren't medically evacuated to Thailand, I just had a rather bad case of it. I was seriously so blessed through this whole time to be surrounded by people who were so helpful, and so willing to help me. Hal was superman, and took such good care of me while I was delirious. The staff at the hospital and the PC staff in Thailand were so helpful and took really good care of me while I felt like I was dying.