the Sarah Illness Chronicles: days 4, 5, & 6

The blood transfusion on Friday afternoon had made me feel much better, but by the next morning, I was feeling rather terrible again. Not that I had gotten worse, but the euphoria from the transfusion was worn off, and I was still ill, and I woke up feeling rough. I sipped some tea and barely ate a piece of toast, not because I wanted to but because I needed some food in my stomach before I could take my pills. Justin is all too familiar with the need to force feed me when I'm sick.

Food did make me feel better, though. Enough that in the next picture I snapped of myself, I was actually sitting up.



When the doctor came to see me, though, she did not find me sitting up, chatting and laughing and asking to go home, as she hoped. Instead, I was stretched out on the bed, barely able to keep my eyes open, perfectly content to just have people talk about me and make decisions for me even though I was right there listening. The doctor decided that instead of releasing me, as she hoped, I should stay there at least two more days, possibly three. Partly, that was because it was the weekend, and there was no guarantee of a doctor and lab technician coming in until Monday.

So we hunkered down for a long, quiet weekend. We had forgotten to bring any books and movies with us from Pemba, so we were a little short on entertainment. We talked a lot and rested a lot, but it wasn't enough. Justin had grabbed a book from our friends in Zanzibar:



This kept us entertained for hours. It's a tongue-in-cheek book full of short, blog-style entries about things "white people" like (but they really mean young, liberal, educated whites who live in places like Portland, Seattle, SF, and NYC). There are entries like "multilingual children" and "the idea of soccer" and "reusable shopping bags." My personal favorite is "threatening to move to Canada," which I do all the time. Anyway, it was a gem to have in the hospital.

I continued to take all my pills



and my lab tests continued to show slow improvement. By Sunday morning I was feeling a bit better.



Our other form of entertainment/distraction was the Internet. Since I was so far away from anyone other than Justin, having the connection of email and Facebook was emotionally essential. We even had a video chat with Juma.



Monday, the main doctor came back from vacation, saw me, and wondered if I had considered going back to the US. Not really, no, I told her, plus I don't have insurance in the US ("I'm moving to Canada!"). Mostly, she didn't want me to go back to Pemba. "I've been to Pemba," she said. "And there's nothing there." We had already agreed that going back to Pemba right now is not smart, and explained to her our plan of staying with our American friends in Zanzibar until I'm better. She asked that I come back in about a week to re-run all the lab tests and see how things are going, so before checking out we set up an appointment for next Wednesday.

Justin packed everything up and escorted my sickly self to the airport, on a 20-minute flight over a beautiful ocean full of coral reefs, and back to our friend Alison's house. There, Juma had just gotten home from school and was still in his uniform.



Since we hadn't known if I'd be released until midday, Juma hadn't heard yet that we were coming home that day. He saw us out the screen door, and came rushing over to the entry way. When I got inside, I immediately knelt down to match his height, and he slammed his body into mine and gave me the fiercest hug I've ever had.