We had to cancel our trek at the last minute. I had a very rough night on Thursday because I was sleeping very little and feeling achy and sore. When it was time to get out of bed in the morning I was trying to convince myself that the soreness was coming from the yoga we had done the day before. We were the only two in the class and for two hours, the yogi stretched and pulled us in directions our bodies were clearly not ready to go in. I attributed the sick feelings to lack of sleep the night before. Basically, I was trying to convince myself that I was okay for the trek. I knew that trying to cancel it only one hour before the sherpa was supposed to pick us up was going to be a real nuisance.
I went into the bathroom and sat on the floor. I was very hot and the cool tiles provided me some relief. When Magi woke up we talked about how I was feeling and she insisted that we call the trek off and go see a doctor. It was a decision I needed her to make as I was still telling myself that I could probably go ahead and trek anyway. Looking back now I realize how stupid that was.
Magi took care of cancelling the trek and a couple of hours later (after a nap), we walked about 20 metres down the street to a clinic for Western travellers (the doc had even practised in Calgary for a few years). I laid down on the clinic bed and felt a tremendous sense of relief just to be laying down once again and to be on my way to finding out what was wrong. I was given an injection in my bum to loosen my tight muscles and ease the pain. They took blood and urine samples to run tests. I was sent home with three bags of drugs and the whole visit, complete with drugs, cost about US$105. It's not a tremendous amount of money, but I'll be glad to recoup it with my medical insurance that, in hindsight, I'm very glad I came with.
Under orders to rest for the remainder of the day, I gladly obliged and looked forward to every horizontal moment ahead of me. I had to wait until Sunday (today) for the diagnosis. Yesterday was a very long and anxious day.
I found out this morning that I have a urinary tract infection and a mild case of typhoid fever. Now for the gross part. Typhoid is "passed in the feces and, to some extent, the urine of infected people. The germs are spread by eating or drinking water or foods contaminated by feces from the infected individual." Disgusting.
Dr. Shah told me the drugs he gave me will take care of both of these problems and that I should feel a marked improvement by the end of today. I'm already feeling much better than I was on Friday and yesterday wasn't too bad either, though moments of feverish confusion still occur. I would have expected something as serious as typhoid fever to feel a lot worse than it does. Oh, the wonders of modern medicine!
I don't think I could have prevented the urinary tract infection. They are not uncommon for women travelling through these parts of the world. I did what I could to prevent typhoid. I had the innoculation prior to the trip... but the doctor said no innoculation is 100% effective... and I tried to eat and drink safe foods. Goes to show, you never know. Thinking back, I cannot pinpoint any occasion where I threw caution to the wind and ate or drank carelessly. But Magi has just reminded me that eating just about any meal in India is throwing (some) caution to the wind. I'm pretty sure I must have contracted typhoid in India because Kathmandu is so touristy and the restaurants are much cleaner than most places we ate in India. Also, it takes 1-3 weeks for the fever to manifest itself and that puts me in India at the time of contamination.
We're sad we had to cancel our only chance to see the countryside and something other than Kathmandu. On the other hand, I keep thinking about what an event it would have been to have had me airlifted to a hospital during the trek.
I go for a check-up on Tuesday and we leave on Wednesday for Bangkok. As usual, we'll keep you posted.
tothesea,
k&m