Day 52 - Sickness, again.

Well, today is day 4 of being sick. There have been some girls in the house that have had some upper respiratory illnesses and I was so hoping that it wouldn’t come around to me. I was taking Airborne and all sorts of things to try and avoid it but it definitely got the best of me. Today was miserable because of it, and I’m not excited for the next 6 days to come that my body will use to kill it off.

I woke up in misery. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get out of bed and be productive. But, somehow, through the will of my own and undoubtedly of someone else I got out of bed and made my way with the rest of the group to Little Angels Primary School. We built a foundation for a stove today there and it was a bit of a challenge. I really stood back on this stove because I wanted the other volunteers to figure it out. I was a little skeptical at first and it continued up until I heard about the end result which was a little lack-luster, but OK. I we worried about that since Amber and I both wouldn’t be there the whole time it was being constructed. I just hope that when we go back on Thursday it looks OK and that we can fill it efficiently. After about 2 hours of being there I couldn't handle it anymore. My symptoms were worsening by the minute and I couldn't even think straight let alone speak straight. I went hope, popped 800mg of Ibuprofen, hopped in bed, and took a 4 hour nap. The sleep really helped, but I was still groggy afterwards. That’s when Kelsi, bless her heart, came to me with Clariton-D in hand asking if it would help. If it would HELP!? Oh my gosh, it was EXACTLY what I needed and I had been asking around the night before. I took one and I could start feeling effects within 30 minutes. They last 24 hours so I should be good to go tomorrow as well. I should be able to sleep like a baby tonight and boy am I excited. Being sick is the worst, especially when you try to do everything NOT to get sick. Oh well, part of the experience I guess.

Something really gross happened tonight that should have progressed to the stage it did. I had notice a little raised area on the 4th to last toe on my right foot. I disregarded it for many days, even a week or so. I assumed it was some sort of inflamed sore that would go away... yeah, not so much. I got out the old finger nail clippers and began to hack away at it thinking it was just skin. I proceeded to clip the top of the bump off and my finger accidently pressed the base of it. Next think I knew there was what I thought was pus coming out of my toe! I was blown away! I had no idea I had hurt myself bad enough that it would need to pus and everything. When I had squeezed all the “pus” out I noticed that there seemed to be a separate piece of skin within the would. I got some tweezers and tugged on it. I peeled up and out in a saucer shape. At this point I’m baffled at what has just occurred. Then I decided to look at the “pus” a little closer with light shinning on it. That’s when I came to the realization that it was no pus, not even close. Try about 100 of the tiniest eggs you have ever seen. Yes, that’s right. I squeezed eggs and an egg sack out of my toe! I couldn’t even believe it! This had happened to Jackie about 6 weeks earlier and we were all freaking out that it had happened. I should have been more curious as two the large bump on my toe, but I wasn’t for some reason. Not I a have been officially initiated into Africa. You haven’t really become a part of Africa unless you are filled with fly larva. I think they are called Bot Flies, though I need a wiki search on that for the name spelling and what exactly they do.

So, some pretty exciting stuff today.... ish. It’s not past 2 am and I need to get to bed. I’m not terribly tired though because of my long nap but I’ll have to make it work. Until tomorrow.