First, I'd like to thank you again for all of your prayers, love, and encouragement over the last two-ish months, and especially the last few days and weeks. Deciding to leave Peru and my project with Vittana was exceedingly difficult (not without a couple of tears and a few Omg, what am I doing?'s) but was made easier with the assurance and support of friends like yourself. (And the unconditional support of Vittana and Manuela Ramos in Peru. It's wonderful to work for and with wonderful people.) Per the usual, I'm trying to keep a light-hearted perspective on everything, though deep down (or not so deep down--kinda shallow down, as evidenced by the random bouts of crying in public) I'm a bit disappointed and scared. (Thankfully, not so scared anymore now that I've gotten some great news from doctors in the USA that I more or less trust and I'm feeling so much better.) Anywho, what follows is an account of the whirlwind return home and an update on how things are going. As always, thanks for reading and for caring.
To begin, we still don't know what I had/have but I'm definitely on the right track. Well, jumping in here doesn't make much sense, but we'll leave that as a spoiler. To reiterate, *Spoiler Alert* I'm going to be fine.
So, I guess, really to begin. I guess it makes sense to start with why I decided to come home. I started to write out the saga, but began it with "Long story short." About halfway through I realized that this was a case of long-story-still-long and decided to revise the story to say this:
Thankfully, I was having trouble getting my return trip to Puno booked after getting the all-clear in Arequipa last Wednesday. Last Friday, while waiting for a trip to Puno, my Peruvian family and I decided it'd be a good idea to get one final blood test to make sure things were okay, as my stomach had never really stopped hurting. I visited the only doctor available that afternoon after traveling to two different clinics, one antequated hospital that belonged in the WWII drama The English Patient, taking nine different cabs (literally), crying to three different secretaries, and scaring countless children as the giant green-haired white lady crying on the phone and shouting, "No one will help me!!!!" (By the way, I maybe made the fever-induced bad decision to color my hair with Peruvian boxed color, and I transformed from giant yellow-haired white woman to giant green-haired one.)
This doctor I visited Friday was the most insane, most ridiculous doctor I've ever seen. (Think TLC's Hoarders: Peruvian Doctor Edition.) He had piles of crap on his desk that I'm sure had been there since the late 80s; posters and calendars on his wall that were questionably related to women's health but displayed an alarming number of women's parts (including a 1991 calendar with busty latinas); and I'm pretty positive he didn't know how to take blood pressure. He said mine was like 50 over 10. I think that means I was clinically dead when I visited him. Anywho, his office was like in an abandoned market/mall downtown and was, for sure, less sanitary than whatever gave me typhoid/salmonella, which were red flags #1 and #2. Don't worry, I didn't touch anything and I got outta there ASAP. I did gladly accept his order for more blood tests, though (at the legit, sanitary lab I'd been going to) so a real doctor could check them out at a later point.
Serendipitously, at the lab I happened to get contact information for the doctor I'd been searching for since my arrival to Arequipa, Dr. Pedro Emilio Alcazar. (Or something. The trick is that he just goes by Emilio, not Pedro Emilio. Latinos and their multiple names!!) My good friend in the States who works at Dell Children's has a friend from Peru who recommended him to me, and though I'd searched high and low and in-between, I hadn't been able to find him anywhere. On Friday, the lab tech happened to mention his name, and I felt like Ponce de León might've if he'd ever found that the spring from Tuck Everlasting. Bingo. I called him, but conveniently he had just left for vacation and recommended I make an appointment for Monday, which I did.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Friday night my fever came back. I'm super glad God had trapped me in Arequipa so that it came back while still in the care of the familia Tovar and not alone in my hostal because I'd have been freaking the freak out. I don't know how high my fever was, but I was in shorts and a t-shirt in 40 degree weather and feelin' like I could go for a dip in an infinity edge pool. I emailed a dear friend, freaking out a little, and went back to sleep (sans covers), figuring I'd be okay at least until morning. In the morning, we called Dr. [Not Pedro] Emilio Alcazar on his cellie and he recommend I see his colleague. [Rats. This story is getting long.] I called the clinic to make an appointment for that day, and the sweet secretary told me he was on his way out the door. I asked her if she could wait, and she said literally five minutes. I told her I'd be there in four.
Away to the window, I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash. Then I flew like a flash to the stairs and then the car and then literally ran across traffic, like the final scene in a romantic comedy, to his office to make sure I'd make it. The secretary/angel paid my money for me at the teller on the first floor while the doctor started our visit. (There you have to pay for your medical treatment before you receive it.) The doctor was kind and seemed really knowledable and I didn't have to tell him how to do his job, unlike Dr. Is-He-Really-a-Doctor? from the day before. He told me he thought I'd received good treatment the first time around, but that I hadn't taken antibiotics for long enough. He then brought up a scary word I won't mention in this blog, kind of like He-Who-Shant-Not-Be-Named or whatever Pottheads call Voldemort, but we'll just say that this word freaked me the heck out and it's with that word that I decided to come home. Basically, he said that with mystery illnesses like mine, if you don't treat it right, you can get really sick, and I was not going to get myself into a 'too late' situation waiting around to see if the Peruvian doctors could figure their sh*t out.
There was the "long-story-short" I lied about, regarding how I decided to come home. Now, to commence the admittedly long-story-long about the journey home:
Immediately after my appointment with the Dr. Competento, I took a cab back home to the casa Tovar, called Copa Airlines, and changed my flight from November 22 to that night. (Copa Airlines was exceedingly helpful, by the way.) It was about 11 a.m. and I booked a flight from Arequipa to Lima for 7 p.m., and a flight out of Lima at 3 a.m. (as well as a flight out of Panama City, Panama at 8 a.m., a flight out of Miami at 3:30 p.m., and a flight from Houston to San Antonio for 8 p.m. the next day.) 27 hours of airports and planes til I was in my mother's arms, but praise the risen Lord only 18 hours until I was in 'merica, land of the free and of the hella expensive, yet more-reliable-than-Peru health care, where I could call 911 and head straight to a hospital in Miami if need be.
I packed up my belongings, left the familia Tovar with some parting gifts I'd bought there like hair conditioner, toilet paper, and bran flakes, as well as all of my professional clothing, by mistake, and headed to the Arequipa airport. The flight from Arequipa to Lima was luxurious (still not as luxurious as that 16-hour Oltursa bus trip) because the only seat left when I bought my ticket was in business class. I was shocked/excited when I found out at the airport I'd be in an asiento ejecutivo. [I think it's hilarious, by the way, how you can literally pay to be called an 'executive'.] Up in the asientos ejecutivos I felt a little elitist rather than executive, though, because there were only four of us up front, the other three being two french tourists and the pilot. (Yeah, you read that right. The pilot was chillin' in the asientos ejecutivos and flirting with the flight attendants while we flew across the country. When we landed without his assistance I assumed he'd left a buddy up front to actually fly the plane, but who really knows. Cars do park themselves now.) The only disappointment of the whole experience was that I was too ill to eat the food served to executives like myself in the asientos ejecutivos. I should have taken it to-go--I did pay a very pretty centavo for that microwaveable rice pudding.
At the Lima airport, Saturday night, my fever got to 100.5 before I took some super-tylenol the doctor had prescribed earlier that day. I was generally freaking out, but sweet, blessed Janice Morris, my 5th grade teacher, coached me through it on Facebook chat, like a birthing coach of sorts, and helped me know I was going to be okay. (THANK YOU, MS. MORRIS! ...I mean Janice... Still weird.) In the Starbucks where I got my free wifi I compulsively took my temperature every few minutes, again freaking out those around me. No shame, though, remember?
On the ride to Miami I sat next to what I'm pretty sure was a friar. (Think Robinhood.) He was wearing a white robe with a red sash, a broach of The Virgin, and a chain around his waist I can only assume was a real-life chastity belt. He was reading what I'm pretty sure God has decreed "the most boring book in the world" and friars and other holy men read so that, in that way, they can know more of true suffering. The book was called (more or less) The Gem Maker. At first I wrongly assumed that the title was some metaphor for God and how he refines us into beautiful gems, but as I read over his shoulder, I realized that the book was literally just about cutting gems, appraising gems, and the history of thoseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm sorry, I fell asleep while typing. Anyways, the friar was nice and friendly and told me to check out his order's website to look at the beautiful things the men paint and the women embroider. I'm so mad I forgot what his website was called, because let's talk about how nuts it is that friars are telling people, "Heyyy, check out my website!"
After a delay in Miami (because of a tropical storm I didn't know existed until after I'd seen its rains--I'd honestly forgotten a world existed outside of my own) I sat on the plane to Houston next to a girl a little younger than me returning from volunteering in Costa Rica. We swapped stories about diarrhea and about flies laying babies in the arms of some of her comrades. (Once, by the way, when I was in high school I was volunteering in a hospital in Austin, and my friend and I read a medical report about a man who had had a spider lay eggs in his arm and when the doctor "mashed the wound"--that's a direct quote from the record--baby spiders crawled out of his arm. So, yeah, be afraid.) The only reason I had gotten that seat, by the way, is because some blessed angel of a man agreed to switch seats with me so I'd be nearer to the front and better able to run across the Houston airport to make my connecting flight. I offered to pay him $20 to switch, but when he saw my desperation, he gladly traded me for free. Let's talk about all the wonderful people who guided my way home for a moment. Like the Continental Airlines staff woman who went way out of her way to make sure my bag got re-routed to San Antonio from Houston. And Continental employees are not, classically, good at customer service. I once was turned away at the gate for a connecting flight in Hotlanta because "they were on a schedule," though the plane was sitting right there, and the reason I was late to my gate, after sprinting about 700 yards with a backpack (slash turtle) was that Continental had taken 45 minutes to put my bags through to customs. Anyways, the woman that helped me with my bags was this super sassy Dominican from New York, but now living in Miami, and was not about to let me get to my final destination without my bag. ¡Viva Mayra!
In Houston I ran from one end of terminal E to the far end of terminal C to catch my flight to San Antonio, maybe peed in my pants a little (or a lot), and got to the gate just in time. Regarding the pee in the pants thing--I realize this is not flattering and does not help me with one of my long-term goals, husband-finding, but remember that I have no shame now. Also, let me explain: I got to my gate and realized the plane to San Antonio was delayed a few minutes, so I stopped in the bathroom to take a leak. You know that feeling when you gotta go kinda badly, but when you get inside the stall all of a sudden you're like about to go in your pants, because your bladder knows you're almost home (figuratively), and you have to kinda trick yourself and think I'm not in a bathroom right now. I'm not in a stall. I'm not pulling down my pants to pee. I have to wait a long time.? Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. I'm sure even Pippa Middelton has had to do it. Well, I didn't realize I had to go that badly at all, so I wasn't prepared to psych myself up, so I didn't, and I peed in my pants. Not all the way, just mostly.
Also, throughout this whole ordeal, my emotions were like a raging Spanish torro, but not because I was mad, just in the sense that they were out of control. Think PMDD or or a pregnant woman. So, every so often while walking through one airport or another, or sitting on a plane, I'd let out a little whimper and my face would contort into something that I'm sure would look endearing and precious on someone like Natalie Portman, but on me just looked painful. Then I'd think about how silly and unflattering I'm sure I looked and I'd start to laugh. I've started to count the number of times I lol each day, just because of things running through my head, and it's about six times a day, on average.
Anyways, after peeing my pants, I boarded my plane to San Antonio, and began making jokes with the woman who ended up sitting next to me on the plane. (And, I'm sure, was another angel, though she's about to start work at Dunkin' Doughnuts HQ in Boston, so I guess angels gotta make a livin', too.) I confessed to her on the plane that the reason I was coming home is because I'd been sick, and that my fever had come back. I told her I wasn't contagious (which I honestly believed I was not, and had never been told that I was) and she was gracious enough to at least pretend she believed me. She offered to trade seats on the plane so I could sleep against the window, but I opted for one of the less comfortable plane sleeping positions: the forehead on the tray table, and conked out.
When we landed in San Antonio I let out another little wimper and my face contorted once last time before pulling myself together and mentally preparing for whatever was next. The plan was to let my mom take me straight to the hospital from the airport and let the 'merican doctors do their thing. The lights came on, people got out of their seats and starting taking their baggage down from the overhead bins. I stayed in my seat because I never see a point to standing up with my head bent all the way down for ten minutes, waiting for the 30 people ahead of me to disembark. All of a sudden, the pilot came over the PA system and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please return to your seats, we have a medical emergency aboard the plane, and need everyone to clear the isles for the emergency team to arrive."
I looked at my seatmate/the angel and, with wide, panicked eyes, said to her, "Oh my gosh, I hope they didn't hear me tell you I may have had typhoid! What if they don't let me in??!" She told me, "Surely not, but maybe we could flag down the medical team and have 'em take a look at you while they're here." I agreed that was a good idea, and then we commenced craning our necks around, looking for who might be the sick person on our plane. Where are they? we wondered aloud. Could they be in first class? We don't see them. Then a large, burly policeman approached our row and asked the woman in the aisle seat to my left to please step aside. He asked me, "Are you Audrey?" My brow wrinkled and my voice cracked as I said yes and started to cry. He told me it was going to be okay, that they'd come to get me, and that my mom was outside waiting for me. He asked which bag was mine, the lady in the aisle seat was able to tell him that it was the 700-lb blue Swiss backpack. The policeman carried my backpack off the plane as I walked behind him, red-faced and apologizing to everyone around me for making them delay. The angel told me it was okay, and I chose to believe her as I stepped into the jetway.
As soon as I got to the gate from the jetway, I saw my mom, really tan and lookin' coo-coo as usual. I don't remember her first words to me, though I'm pretty sure they were somewhere along the lines of "I love you, it's going to be okay." My first words to her? "Your hair looks crazy." That said through tears, of course. (Her co-worker had had accidentally--on purpose?--given her a mullet the week before.)
The firefighters and policemen (and woman), about 600 of them in total (a small militia, really), insisted I sit down in a wheelchair they'd brought for me while they asked me questions. "Do you have diarrhea now?" No, not for over two weeks. "Do you want us to take your temperature and blood pressure now?" Um, they're going to do that at the hospital, right? I really feel okay. It was all a little excessive, but at least I didn't have to carry that backpack. That thing was heavy.
The firemen and police had asked my mom if we wanted them to transport me to the hospital via ambulance. Again, that seemed excessive (I didn't feel like I was dying), so we declined. It turns out, if you ever need to go to the ER, just take the ambulance. It's a $500 very well-spent. As it is, we waited more than ten hours to get a room, and that was only because my mom was so persistent in telling the women at the front desk that I have a potentially contagious infectious disease and needed a room pronto. One kid we made friends with in the waiting room, he waited 15 hours to splint a confirmed broken hand before deciding to just go home. The next day, when we checked out at 4 p.m., some people were still in the waiting room that had been there since before we'd arrived. Needles to say, it was a big, hot, somewhat bloody mess.
The downside to my mom's strategy is that they made we wear a mask so I wouldn't give my disease to other people. It was a little ridiculous, though, since intestinal illnesses are transmitted via feces, but whatever. I didn't care so much, except that I hadn't brushed my teeth in a while and my hot, bad breath was stinking up that mask.
I will say that University Hospital in San Antonio was awesome, aside from the ridiculous wait time. I was amazed that they immediately ran the tests I'd been wishing they'd run all along in Peru. They did a sonogram on my organs to make sure they were okay. (They are.) They gave me more antibiotics through the IV and made me poop in a cup again. Nearly every single nurse, orderly, technician, and doctor was incredibly attentive, thorough, and compassionate. It was a good experience, if you can say that about a hospital stay.
As far as the results, a couple of things were off in my blood, which they said could have been caused by stress in my body. Because my organs checked out, nothing is anything to worry about now. I'll have to do a few follow up tests in coming weeks for a few of those things. In the meantime, I'm seeing an infectious disease specialist here in SA who is monitoring my blood cultures to make sure they check out. If they check out, and I'm continuing to feel well, it looks like I'm okay. I'm still all "mystery diagnosis," but the sentiment of the doctors is that all's well that ends well. As long as I'm physically feeling like I'm headed in the right direction, and my blood levels get back to normal, we can be confident I'm over whatever it was.
All of that said, though I'm surely disappointed that my Peruvian adventure ended this way, I'm just thankful to be alive and recovering. I'll tell you, I have a greater appreciation for the USA than I ever have. In the Miami airport I went to brush my teeth and just couldn't believe I could use the tap water to do it. (Really couldn't believe it--I used my bottled water.) I've experienced rugged living before in the DR and in Zambia (more or less), but there's nothing like being in a scary situation in a foreign country to make one really and truly appreciate what we have here. It's for this reason I pray that we all do what we need to do to pull America through this tough time we're in...
Now to get all serious...
A friend asked me last night what I was most glad to have now that I'm back. He was expecting an answer like "consistent hot water" but instead I went on a ramble about how much I hope that we can reign in some of our ridiculousness here in America so that we can hold on to those luxuries that we should be most thankful for, like good medical care and access to quality education, to name just two (which are failing, by the way, due to greater attention to less important agendas...). Do we need it to be 70 degrees inside when it's 108 outside? No. Do we need to retire at age 58? Also 'no'... And also to name just two.
The whole debt ceiling debate/debaucle in the US really boils down to this: We need a balanced budget. We need for our expenditures to match our income. This principle is true for nearly every one of the challenges we face in the "developed word": balance is everything (to quote Grendel*). We need to search our hearts and our consciences and cut away what is truly unnecessary so that we may keep what is most valuable. I challenge each of you (and myself) to think about the frivolties we enjoy, and how we can cut back on those in order to ensure that we can hold onto the less frivolous luxuries we are so blessed to have here. Every one of us needs to be willing to sacrifice so that our future selves and our children don't have to sacrifice in ways that we don't want to imagine.
Thanks for letting me share my piece (and my stories). Thank you again for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement. I'll keep you updated, of course!
Oh, and now that I'm back, I'm considering starting a general story blog. Who would read?
much love,
Audrey
*Mrs. D/Cheryl: I'm not joking, that "balance is everything" quote/discussion from our Grendel unit is the most salient lesson of all of high school.
