the Sarah Illness Chronicles: day 3

By Friday morning, I was still feeling awful, but at least stabilized, having been on an IV all night.



I also managed to eat some food. Not just any food, either, but our staple on previous trips to Dar es Salaam: Subway sandwiches.



I rarely even eat at Subway in the US, but after living off of Zanzibari food--great, but repetitive--for a few months, an American style sandwich is always most welcome. And it was just our luck, and Justin's resourcefulness, that found a new store that had opened up not two days before, right around the corner from the clinic. He also found a supermarket (which simply do not exist in Pemba, and barely exist in Zanzibar) and bought some supplies: toothpaste, snacks, chocolate. German chocolate!

I spend the day lying in bed, getting poked and prodded by needles for lab tests and a new IV for the upcoming blood transfusion. Every time I walked (the only place I ever went was the bathroom, 10 feet away) I felt cold and shaky, and lay back in bed begging for a blanket. I also got put on a bunch of different medications. The red one is iron for the anemia; the four small yellowish ones are for malaria; the big white one is for a bacterial infection; and the big yellow one for the intestinal amoeba.



But the big event that day was the blood transfusion. As soon as the doctors started talking about the possibility of needing one, Justin and I discussed our blood types and realized he could donate to me: he's O- and I'm A+ (what else would I be?). But there are other tests to run, so Justin also had to get poked and prodded by needles in order to confirm that he could donate. He disappeared from my room for a while and came back with a gauze bandage around his elbow, just like people you see after blood drives in the US.

I snapped a picture of myself before the transfusion.



And after. Notice the difference in color in my lips.



I felt a lot better the evening after the transfusion. I had been in some serious need for blood. Just call me a vampire. I was feeling well enough that on one trip out of bed, I stopped at the scale to weight myself. I had been 53 kilograms the night before--less than I have weighed since I don't know when. Definitely since adulthood. Now, after all the fluid replacement and transfusion, I was up to 57. That's almost nine pounds difference. I will never again be so happy to gain nine pounds!