Adventures in illness...

I have garlic in my ear, cats crawling into my 4th story flat, and my own personal nurse giving me sponge baths.

It all began a week ago Monday. Just as I was leaving the office I could feel it hitting me; I was getting sick. I went home and spent the evening relaxing in my house. My colleague, Bita, called and said that we had an invitation to Rofiq’s house for dinner. I tried to convince her that I was too sick to go, but she said we had to go as his pregnant wife had prepared us dinner. By 10 pm we were heading out the door to our dinner invitation. As we ate large portions we watched the news and saw that a massive tropical storm was hitting south Bangladesh. That night Bita spent the night at my house, and I did not sleep well due to a fever. Once in the middle of the night I got out of bed, and I put my foot down on something furry. My first reaction was that I had stepped on a cat, but as it was completely dark, and as a cat had never been in my house before I assumed it was my fever. After I came out of the bathroom and the light was on, I saw a cat dash through my bedroom. I screamed, woke up Bita, and very efficiently chased the cat out onto the roof within 30 seconds.

The next morning I was not feeling well, so I stayed in bed. As soon as my office heard that I was sick, three colleagues were at my house interrogating me as to my breakfast consumption. They then bought me medicine for my fever and called my cook to come make me food, tea, and sponge baths. I did not really feel like eating, and I really didn’t feel like eating the extremely oil soaked food that my cook made. I love Bangladeshi food, but when I’m sick I can’t stand it. I lay in bed all day, but I could barely sleep as people were calling every five minutes from Mymensingh, Dhaka, and Sirajganj asking about my health. People were visiting also. I don’t know how the Dhaka office found out that I was sick, but several administrators were calling to see if I needed a car sent out to bring me to Dhaka. My neighbors were horrified when they found out around 10 am that I was sick, “We didn’t know she was sick!” (I had been sick for less than 12 hours.) When I was able to locate a thermometer around midday, I discovered my fever to be 104. My cook tried to lower my fever by pouring cold water over my head for ten minutes. Then she took a damp towel and gave me a sponge bath….very interesting, but I was too sick to protest. I spent the next two nights at my landlord’s house. I was fine sleeping alone, but everyone else was appalled at the thought of me being sick and alone. The next day my fever was down to 102, and the day after it was down to nearly normal. (Who knows what normal is when the temperature is in the 90s?) By Thursday I was feeling well enough to go to the office for a few hours, though I was a bit weak.

Friday I was fine, and Saturday I went to a wedding party with my friend Shilpi who had come from Dhaka for the weekend. Saturday night I was feeling tired so I took an evening nap. I woke up around 10 pm and had some dinner that Shilpi made, but I also noticed that my ear was hurting. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t due to my late evening nap. Then it got later and later and I couldn’t sleep because of increasing intense ear pain. It hurt to lie down actually, and by 3 am I was wishing for morning. It was kind of an eye-opening situation, there was no emergency room to go to – nothing to do but wait in intense pain for the morning. I didn’t sleep at all. By 6 am, I was waking Shilpi up so that we could go to Dhaka. The bus ride was moderately miserable, but the taxi ride to Mohammadpur from the bus station was absolutely horrible. It was raining when we got into Dhaka around 8, during the traveling to work/school hour. The rain caused a massive traffic jam, so it took over an hour to go a distance that normally would take fifteen minutes. As I was moaning in pain in the taxi in the traffic jam, I saw that we were behind an ambulance with flashing lights and a siren. But the ambulance didn’t have any more power to go anywhere than we did – it was also stuck in traffic. In the course of the taxi ride we got rammed in the back by a large bus, and my ear starting leaking fluid. That morning was the day of national exams for many students, and we saw many kids who were forced to run down the sidewalk in order to try get to their exams in time despite the traffic jam and rain.

Finally I arrived at the Dhaka office, and Ethel escorted me to the doctor’s office on the posh side of Dhaka. This was the first time that I’d been to the doctor’s in Bangladesh, but even this was a doctor for the rich. Finally I was called into his office, and we sat down at his desk – not an examination table. He asked me what was wrong, but wasn’t listening very well as he started by looking down my throat while Ethel mentioned that I had said the problem was my ear. He listened to my breathing, looked in my ear, and asked me if I had been swimming recently. The only recent swimming I had done was in Bangladeshi rivers and ponds, and there is no way my head is going under that water. Could it have been the sponge bath/water pouring that my cook had done? Maybe it was the kiddy pool that I had imported from America to cool off in when there is no electricity? I couldn’t think of a reasonable cause, and the doctor didn’t really say what the problem was except for swimming. Hmm? He then gave me eardrops, antibiotics, and miracles of miracles – painkiller. I never take medicine, but maybe I should keep painkiller on hand. The whole doctor’s visit took less then five minutes.

Ethel took me to her house where I slept, drained my ear, and ate normal food like soup, toast, and ice cream. My ear was draining so much that it went through the cotton in my ear, through the towel, and onto the pillow. Gross! That night I stayed in Dhaka, but as I hadn’t brought so much as a toothbrush, the next morning I went back to Mymensingh. I’d rather be sick in Mymensingh, even if there aren’t good doctors as there are more people to take care of me. I did however received many reprimands from Ethel and Robin telling me to take proper care of myself and sleep and not go to the office. Thursday was my first full day back, and it’s great to be back. My ear has stopped draining, and doesn’t hurt anymore. However, I still can’t hear completely. I can be lying on my bed with my mobile two feet away, and not hear the ring. So my helpful colleagues upon hearing about my deafness suggested some natural medicine for my ear. Take some garlic, wrap it in cotton, and stick it in your ear. All day I had the garlic in my ear, what else to do when antibiotics haven’t worked? It actually made me hear even less to have a big piece of garlic in my ear, and I could smell garlic all day.

But don’t worry, this type of sickness is normal in this tropical climate during this stormy season when the temperature can change at the drop of a hat. It is also normal to get a seeping, painful ear infection after having a high fever. Darren’s parents are here from Canada, and his mother said that she had this happen to both of her ears after she went scuba diving last year. I am hopeful that I will regain full hearing in the near future.