A crazy couple of weeks.

To put it lightly I have had a crazy couple of weeks. Let me try to fill you all in.


So it all started on Thursday night (the 29th of September) at 2:30 am...I woke up to this really strange chest pain and it didn't go away for the rest of the night...in the morning I finally got up to go for breakfast only to find out that eating or drinking anything was extremely painful. I went to the hospital that day and the doctor thinking it was phemonea gave me a bunch of medication and antibiotics. Days went by and the medication didn't help..in fact the pain was getting worse and worse, I was hardly eating anymore.
In another attempt to get better I went to another hospital to get checked out by another doctor..once again he diagnosed me wrong and gave me the wrong antibiotics and in addition 2 injections that actually made things worse. I saw him three times and nothing had changed. By Thursday I had completely stopped eating and drinking because the pain literally became unbearable. Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday and Saturday i pretty much had nothing to eat or drink...and apparently you need food and water to survive so I became extremely sick and was quickly dwindling down to nothing. By Saturday I was almost blacking out, feeling nauseated, always light headed and extremely weak. In a last final attempt I went to see a Canadian doctor to try and find an answer...we met at a coffee shop...gotta love the good hospital facilities in moshi..of wait, there are none. So the doctor told me I needed an IV in me asap and told me which meds to go buy..I am the luckiest person in the world because my roomate is a nurse...Honestly I don't know what would have happened to me without her..she picked up the IV stuff at the pharmacy and set up an IV right in my room while i was lying on the bunk bed..acouple things were sketch about this...first, we were not in a proper place for any of this at all, 2 the needle that was available was big and i was so dehydrated that all my veins were tiny, and 3 I have this irrational fear of needles. I was so Dehydrated that the tightness of my veins broke 2 of the needles and I had to get pricked like 4 times. She managed to finally get it in...and I was able to get 2 litres of fluids in me...which honestly probably saved me from something pretty serious.
The next day she tried to put another IV on me because I was still dehydrated but at this point I was so dry it wasn't working. 2 of my veins completely blew (leaving me with some pretty cool looking bruises) and another one was close to doing the same..all the needles broke and I wasn't able to have an iv for Sunday.

Here is where things get wild. I get a phone call from my health insurance company late Sunday night saying that the insurance doctors talked about it and think that I need to be medically evacuated to the nearest well functioning hospital. So at 4 am I packed up all my things thinking I was going back to Canada after this was all done and went to the airport...Jenna...my roomate came with me..thank God. We got flown by a private plane from Tanzania to Nairobi Kenya..wild. I must admit that part was pretty cool...but i was literally to weak to even look out the window..so it made it hard for me to enjoy it. So i get to this hospital...and right away Im getting treated by this amazing doctor...they finally were able to get an IV in me which helped a lot.
I was in the hospital from Monday to Wednesday...and by Wednesday I was finally better. Able to eat and drink like normal..Thank god for that.
Getting back to Tanzania was a mission and a half though. The insurance didn't cover the ride back so me and Jenna had to somehow find our own way back. Let me tell you something about Nairobi, its insane..super dangerous and nothing comes easy. You can't even ride in a car with your window open without fear of being robbed. People will rob you infront of the police and they will do nothing about it. Scary stuff. Jenna was able to find us a bus to take back...but of course we almost missed it cause the hospital was almost 2 hours late dismissing me. and of course we had to get into 2 sketchy cars to find the bus...and of course we had the worst seats in the bus sandwiched between a man with really bad body odor and a lady who had her pants undone and sang the whole ride. It was unbelievably hot but no one bothered to open a window. Poor Jenna had gone through hell and back in Nairobi dealing with all the stuff on the outside of the hospital..if it weren't for her I would probably still be in Nairobi having no clue what to do. Finally after 5 hours we arrived in Arusha which was an hour and a half away from where we were staying and our friend picked us up..and finally we were home.

So that concludes the crazy story of Monica being sick in Africa. Here is a tip...if your going to Africa..don't get sick, The health care in most places is absolutely awful. It made me really appreciate Canada's health care system and the security it gives. A simple fix turned out to be so complex because I didn't have what I needed To get better in Tanzania. Not going to lie..i was extremely scared...but God has a way of working things out. I was supposed to come home to Canada..but I asked to be able to finish my mission..I still have so much to do...and so many people to help. Nothing is going to stop me from doing that. I learnt the hard way though that at times you need to be selfish...and take care of your needs..by as long as I am better...all I have for the next 5 weeks is going to the people of Tanzania.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for me and supported me through this hard time!

LOVE,

Monica!