God did not agree.
My elbow had been doing this crazy infection thing for a while so I started taking antibiotics on Sunday when I realized it was not getting better after almost a week and hurt to find a position to sleep in. Then when Tuesday rolled around and it was in fact getting worse as the antibiotics should be doing their thing I decided to make the 3ish hour bike to my closest neighbor and see what he though while giving Med a good call. So I put on my dirty clothes and packed up some med supplies, 2 cliff bars, half a loaf of village bread, iPod, sunglasses, Adventure Racing Club baseball hat, and water then took off down the dirt road. It’s a good ride, fairly scenic, a few small villages to pass through keeping everything fun. I, however, am in horrible shape from not doing much of anything since we got in country; that half loaf of bread really did the trick to get me through the last third of the bike.
Once in Bembou I stuck with my plan of going to the main road and asking someone there where the volunteer (PCV, Kellen) lives. So I biked along the main road for a while, up close to the side street that I thought he lived down, spotted the guy I thought looked most helpful and stopped next to him. I did the generic greetings then before I could ask about the volunteer the man told me that he was at his house. I looked at him for a bit so he asked if I had ever been there before… I hadn’t so he got up and walked me up the street where I saw Kellen getting out of his compound. Turns out the random man I picked up on the side of the street was his host father, so I made the right choice when I picked him out as looking helpful.
To my luck again Kellen was on his way to second lunch at the school. He’s made this fun habit of eating with the teachers at the school, something I’ve decided to try to do. After second lunch we went to his counterpart’s house and shelled some peanuts while I tried to get a hold of Med to try finding out what is going on with me. It was kind of an ordeal getting a hold of them since I now have 2 phone numbers, but we figured it out. Med wanted me to email some pictures over when I had a chance, and this is about 3 hours closer to internet than I’ve been if a couple weeks so my chance was now. I hopped back on my bike and made the 45 minute ride to Saraya to meet up with the PCV there (Chris), and the volunteer I helped the baby weighings with (Emily). Chris was nice enough to let me spend the night and Emily has a pretty sweet set up, including internet so we used her computer to send out a couple pictures to Med. Later in the night we had to go to the hospital where Chris does a lot of his work so he could talk to someone about a Basketball event they were hosting the next day. While we were there Emily convinced me to let a nurse look at my elbow, she quickly said that the antibiotic I was on was not the right one at all. That, combined with Chris’s urging to head to Kedougou if things were not getting better the next day helped to make my next decision that much easier.
I woke up the next morning fairly certain my elbow was getting worse, so instead of heading back to my village in the middle of nowhere I loaded myself and my bike onto a bus heading to the regional capitol of Kedougou. After biking to the Peace Corps regional house I rested for about 3 minutes before calling Med to update them on the status of my elbow. With the news that it was getting worse they suggested I head to Dakar so they could see it. I was able to add my computer to what I have with me at this point since that is all I had left at the regional house, and with help from people who know what their doing I was in a sept-place (a station wagon with room for 7 passengers, public transportation) on my way to Tambacounda for the night.
Once that 3 hour ride was finished and I had made it to the Tamba regional house I soaked my elbow in hot water in an attempt to draw out some puss. I did this quickly while I was in Kedougou as well, but this attempt was far more successful and I needed to change the water several times.
I woke up the next morning with my arm swollen up to my wrist, and made my way to the Garage to get on another sept-place to Dakar. This being a 10 hour drive, and my experience in the back seat with my elbow was less than enjoyable I opted to pay a little extra to get the front seat. VERY glad I made that decision when they loaded the sick woman into the back (you might think, rude, you should give up the good seat for the sick person. This was actually probably more desirable because she was able to be surrounded by people who knew her and would support her if needed. It was also clear very early on that she did not want help). The ride itself was fairly uneventful actually.
A solid 10 hours later I was in Dakar negotiating taxi price to the Peace Corps office. He laughed at me, I laughed at him, and we came to an agreement. I was a little annoyed when he made me pay pat way through the ride because he needed gas, leaving me with no bargaining chip should he start driving me in circles. Luckily he didn’t, and we made it to the office easily, just in time for med to be gone for the night.
First order of business, shower… once I got clean clothes to change into. dI rummaged through the SeneGAD clothes and picked out the only clothes that a male could possibly wear and headed to the shower. I washed my nasty dirty clothes in the sink before the shower (so they would have as much time as possible to dry in case none of the SeneGAD clothes worked). The real shower felt AMAZING, so good that I decided to try to squeeze as much puss out of my elbow as I could. After the shower I tried on my new clothes, which were fully acceptable, grabbed some dinner, put in a movie and continued soaking my elbow.
***Graphic details because I know some people who want to know, until the stars come back, don’t read if you don’t want to know:: The puss ranged from your standard yellowish to green, and to start off with there was what I think of as a clog. Meaning that the pus at the openings had kind of coagulated into a plug so when I started squeezing the start of that plug just popped out, needing me to actively pull it out of my arm.*** Graphicness done.
The next (Friday) morning I went in for med to take a look, with again more swelling in my arm, and was informed that an appointment was already made for me at the clinic/hospital and that they might want to keep me for a few days so I should bring my things. Luckily I did, because of my slight fever and Popeye arm they decided to keep me there for the weekend so they could give me IV antibiotics and make sure it was all working. In reality I probably didn’t need to stay there, but whatever, luckily there was another PCV there and we got to keep each other company!
The swelling started to go down quickly, and my Sunday afternoon I was off the IV and getting to take oral antibiotics. I am thankful that they did not have to lance it or do anything to drain out the puss beside squeeze a bunch out every morning when they changed the bandage.
And so, Monday at 10am I was picked up from the hospital with bandages on both arms from where they had drawn blood and where my IV had stopped working right and returned to the office “Health Hut.” Now here I am, more than a week after leaving on my daylong bike trip to Bembou, back in Tamba waiting for a ride to Kedougou, then on to Khossanto.
