It’s very difficult to get space here. Wherever I am, there are always people around—at the house, at the Baby Cottage, in the shower, or on the streets. I honestly thought this would be more of a challenge than it has been, but nevertheless, it still just “hits” at times and I wish I could get out. A hit happened earlier this week and I decided to head down to Kampala to visit some friends (apparently I didn’t hear myself when I said, “There will be no more vehicular travel while in Uganda”).

My head and body were feeling a bit off on Tuesday, and I mentioned being more fatigued lately, but there’s no telling what such symptoms mean here, so I decided to go anyway. Walking to the taxi-park found me really tired and sweaty, but again, it was an exceptionally hot day and at this point I was just ready to get away. The three-hour bus ride swiftly moved me downhill. The sweating increased dramatically and my body started growing achy and feverish. Nearing Kampala, I realized there was no way I was suitable to connect with friends and decided to get a hotel for the night and head back to Jinja in the morning. My symptoms were worsening fast though and “getting a hotel” isn’t exactly a simple, or always safe, option here. So as awful and impossible as it seemed, I realized my only option was turning back around. The driver thought I was crazy, but as the passing hours moved me from sweating, to shivering and groaning, he realized what was going on. My body was abnormally sensitive to touch and I had a headache as big as Colorado. There were a few minutes when my neck got stiff, which frightened me of Meningitis, but thankfully the aches quickly spread, making it quite obvious I had Malaria.

Those hours seemed so long. As I pictured myself in his arms, I remember begging Jesus to make them shorter. Every so often I would sense his gentle whisper saying, “You’re close, hold on.” It’s a miracle I listened to this voice, as I thought the Africans had desensitized me to any belief regarding proximity or time duration. “Close” to them could mean we still have five hours. Anyway, this all seems blurry now, but somehow I made it back to Jinja and went immediately to the Clinic. I had absolutely no balance and very little coherence at this point, so told the boda-boda driver to go as slow as possible. I used to think this mode was romantic, and wondered if I convinced any onlookers during this trip—my arms clinched what they could of his shirt and my head fell limp on his back. It was no surprise that the Malaria results were positive and to be honest, I wasn’t as much scared, as I was thankful to be home and with treatment. If not treated quickly, this disease will kill you within days. Thankfully though, my symptoms had been obvious enough that nothing could’ve stopped me from going straight to blood tests. The medication gets you out of the red zone pretty rapidly, but the unfortunate part is that the parasites still have to run their course, which maps out a somewhat predictable five-day process.

Malaria feels like having the Flu and being asked to run the last .2 miles of a 26.2-mile marathon. Your body aches in erratic locations and durations and things like putting on a shirt can take five minutes due to weakness and skin sensitivity. Its process is quite interesting (I wouldn’t have used that word a couple days ago). Precautions like anti-malarial pills, or mosquito nets are taken, but you can never be fully immune. The mosquito bites and leaves parasites that lie dormant in your blood for eight to twenty days, and once infected, the disease never departs. That said, I’ll no longer be able to give blood and will require of some follow-up testing once I get back to the States.
Oddly enough though, if you’re gonna get Malaria, Africa is the place to do it. It’s so common here, especially in areas near a waterfront, that treatment is on hand at every hospital and clinic, which would be a different story in America. Nonetheless, it’s been serious enough to keep me bed-ridden for a few days, with nights mixing fevers and headaches with pretty gnarly bouts of soreness and shivering. I’ve kept an appetite (one of the meds actually gives you the munchies…too bad it doesn’t kick-in the other effects, as well) and only been nauseous due to levels of pain.

Crazy as it sounds, if I had to pick a context to get Malaria, this would’ve been it. Well, okay, my first option would be in the Pocono Mountains with Dad, Mom, Courtney and Ian by my side, but a close second would be a house of twenty people, many of whom are pre-med and nursing students. I’ve not been able to get through a night, let alone hour, without someone checking on me. My roommates have held, hand fed and prayed over me in hours of weakness. Not surprisingly, this falls right on schedule with God’s attempts to teach me about ‘being served’ lately. He knows that if it’s up to me, my pride, stubbornness and fear, I guess, won’t let it happen, so continues to take me to extremes where ‘letting’ it happen isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. Beth Moore says when we ask God for humility, He’s more than happy to bring it. The problem is, there’s always “stuff” to be knocked out in order for this it to arrive. And we can either keep standing and force that He swings and hits us, before hitting the stuff, or we can choose to kneel down in surrender, allowing Him to just knock out the stuff. Apparently I like to insist on standing. Whatever the case, it’s been a gift to be served this week and a gift to have no space.