Take your vitamins!

Hi there, its been a while, hasn't it.

I am more, or less, recovered from the illness the last couple of entries mentioned. But I still ended up going to the doctor to get poked, prodded, and X-rayed. The good news is that they determined from the X-ray that I do have lungs; even better, they are clean. We are still waiting for other test results (blood tests for Dengue—yeah, I know—and who knows what else).
One of the doctor's concerns is stress, so he prescribed a ton of B vitamins. Looking back, I have been stressed, and there are a ton of factors that go into that. I won't bore you with all of them, but one major thing is being in a foreign country for a protracted amount of time, and not knowing a return date.

We are still waiting on one peice of paper so that we can start the other paperwork. They said "within the next month," a month ago, so I am not sure where we stand with that.

I am looking forward to getting "home" and seeing friends and family again (though, the latter more so than the former). It should be somtime this year, and I assure you that I will let you know here very soon after I know.

If you want to know how best to pray for us, please email me.

Make up your mind, Karl!

So, looks like my illness was incorrectly assessed. It was not Dengue Fever. I still recommend not getting that disease, though.

I don't have a name for what I had. Evidently all my symptoms were the result of some sort of throat infection. I went to the doctor the night I wrote the last post, because I was still feeling ill. He said that I needed antibiotics, an injection, and a throat spray.

I am still recovering, but the worst, by far, is over. The doctor said that there is no Dengue in these parts this time of year.

Some minor news on the paperwork we are waiting for: I now have an internet site I go to every day to see if the papers have arrived. I am not sure of this, but I think that means the papers have been approved, and I am just waiting for them to arrive in Teresina.

Don't Get Dengue

If you have had Dengue Fever (aka Breakbone Fever, as well as a couple of other names), it should be enough for me to say that I have had it for the past few days.

If you are not familiar with the disease, I can tell you that (a) you don't want it, and (b) you really don't want it.

I don't remember when the first symptoms showed up (which, for me, was a very sore throat), but I think it was last weekend. When I went to the interview on Monday, I remember feeling a bit tired and low. After that things kind of get fuzzy. I remember things that happened, just not the order of them.

A high fever (104-105F) is typical, but I don't know what mine was (I have not seen a thermometer around at all). It was very painful when someone brushed up against my skin, or ran their hand across it, and everything that hurt before the fever hurt worse (5-10x worse) during it.

I was told (I think by Nadya) that the reason everything hurts is that the virus causes your blood to coagulate a little bit, making blood flow more difficult.

Headache? Check. Probably similar to a migrane. It was as if I could feel the lining around my brain pulsating every time my heart beat. Also, my inner ears felt like they were going to explode at times.

Basically everything is like having the flu, except 2x to 10x worse.

There is not a vaccine for Dengue Fever, though I hear they are working toward that.

I am feeling well today, as the fever broke last night. Though, I do still have a very sore (and swollen) throat, and my ears hurt a bit. Nadya took wonderful care of me while I was ill, and put up with some of my pretty bad moods as well (she even said she would do it all again!).

Should you be interested in more information about Dengue Fever, here is a search on it, and here are some links to specific sites I found helpful: Link, Link, also, the Wikipedia Entry (which is also the image source).