The Hitchhiker

If you’re in a developing country and they advise you to sleep with a mosquito net, you should listen because in my most recent experience this is important. There was a period of about two weeks where I was sleeping in and out of various motels across the country while conducting my research on the coffee cooperatives. When I say motel I do not mean a holiday inn, those do not exists in this country. Rather these motels are very basic, one bed, a toilet and a shower. The shower was more like a water hose with an advance nozzle trying to disguise itself as something fancy. Needless to say I never felt very clean. There is nothing wrong with this setup, I am living in another man’s country and that’s just how it’s done, again this is one of the many things you have to accept in this line of work.

During my two weeks of exploring the Rwandan hillsides, I was bitten, not by the love bug, but by another bug, probably in my sleep when I was not using my mosquito net. The thing is I took the idea of a net that keeps mosquitoes away at face value. I thought it was just that, for mosquitoes and nothing else, this was my first mistake. Apparently the use of the Mosquito net is to keep all bug outs, the title deceived me.

Returning home after 2 weeks in the field and having a chance to get cleaned up, the first thing I noticed is that I had a sore back, secondly I noticed that this was due to a large bump that had apparently taken root over the past 2 weeks. Now, cancer runs in the family and so does an over active imagination, realizing this I was a little spooked. The next morning, first thing, I was on the phone with my friend Irmi (er +me), who just happened to be a German doctor volunteering her time in Rwanda for a few months and more importantly she spoke English. Not knowing what I had, I was greeted at the hospital by her and a few of her interns where they preceded to poke at my already sore back and discuss in French what my ailment might be. After a few minutes of deliberation it was decided that my bump was not life threatening and that I was indeed bitten by something and that it had become infected, that was music to me ears, well at least the part about still being able to keep my life.

The hospital was never on my list of things to see in Africa, and yet here I was, awaiting the doctor’s plan on how they would remove the hitchhiker that had taken up residence on my back. I was seen by three different doctors each with their own idea of how I should be treated. Irmi was a proponent of the wait and see if it gets better approach, doctors 2 and 3 were ready to give me anesthesia and wheel me into surgery, where they would cut off my bump; to me this seemed unnecessary. I took the wait and see approach and returned a few days later.

Upon my return I was seen by irmi and a second German doctor plus the previous two that were ready to practice their surgery skills on me. Unfortunately for me, the second German doctor was a proponent of surgery so I was losing the battle at that point. However, as deliberations continued, out of nowhere comes a surgeon, speaking Spanish. He must have had rank or been some kind of guardian angel because when he said premira , everyone stop talking. My Spanish is rusty, but I am pretty sure he embarrassed a few people in that room. Like irmi, he was a proponent of the wait and see approach, however, he was also a fan of putting me on antibiotics for a week and so was I. If you’re keeping tabs the tally is now 2 Germans, 2 Rwandans and 1 Spanish doctor, all I needed was an American and an Englishman and I probably could have gotten a United Nations resolution on how I should be treated.

The Spanish now have two things going for them, their food and there medical care. After a week of taking medication I knew that my next moves had to be very careful, because if I played the wrong card someone would try to practice surgery on me. While the medications caused the bump on my back to shrink it did not make it disappear, the question then became who else can I reach out too and then it dawned on me; we have a nurse running the health program at the SPREAD office. Why I didn’t think of this sooner is beyond me, maybe I just got caught up in the moment or if I was embarrassed but it was the best decision I could have made. Jean (Pronounced John), our in house nurse, knows everyone at the hospital and when I went an told her my story, she knew the doctor that would both make fun of me for not using a mosquito net as well as make me feel as if I was being given some sound medical advice, something that I had not felt through this whole ordeal, his advice was no surgery and the use of a topical cream that would make my bump disappear.

As I stated in an earlier post, for some reason I have an inherent belief that I was meant to spend the summer working for SPREAD, over this whole 2 months that I have been with them I have not one single complaint, they have always been in my corner supporting me 110%, this situation was no different. Some lessons learned from this experience:

• Mosquito nets are not just for mosquitoes
• I never again want to get sick in a country other than my own
• If you get sick in a country other than your own it helps if your physician speaks your language
• Get more than three opinions
• Pray