Hello again to everyone! Thanks to everyone who sends us little messages via Facebook. We've been busy as always at the clinic. We had a stream of inpatients the past few weeks with one patient with typhoid staying 10 days. Typhoid fever does weird things to people and she kept us busy trying to prevent her from pulling out her hair, IV, or urinary catheter. Also, the local public health office down in the lowlands sent a group of people to our clinic to do education about malaria, do blood smears, and hand out mosquito nets.
As I am recovering from my fourth experience with malaria, my mom suggested that I describe a little more about it. Malaria can have a variety of symptoms but the telltale signs are usually fever, chilling, severe headache, nausea, and diarrhea. Malaria is usually cyclical so it is not uncommon to fever at the same time every day. While malaria itself is not fun, the medicine's side effects are not much better. The treatment consists of 3 drugs, chloroquine, primaquine, and Fansidar. I've gotten to the point where I cringe every time I give these meds out to patients at the clinic. With malaria I usually start feeling better by the third day, but it usually takes about a week to get my strength back.
Aside from medical things, it is planting season here. Most everyone has slashed and burned an area for their farm and now are planting rice. The farms are located on the sides of the mountains and I sometimes wonder how they manage to keep from falling off. It is an exciting time for the Palawanos and you can hear whooping and hollering all over the hills. Everyone gathers to watch when someone is burning their field. The next step is to gather all the sticks that didn't burn the first time and stack them in piles to burn again. Then the field is ready for planting. They plant rice by poking a hole in the ground and putting 6-8 grains of rice inside. They don't plant in rows, just wherever. Helping out with the farming has given me a new appreciation for the food we eat here.
Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement!
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