CAUTION: THIS POST MIGHT NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES. ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK EVERYONE POOPS.
So getting sick anywhere is not really that fun but normally a bought of diarrhea I would just wave off as something that I ate or a night with a couple to many beers and keep on living. But here in Guatemala there are much worse things that one needs to worry about. We had been warned about things like parasites and amoebas in our welcome speech and all the places that we could get them. But I normally have a pretty strong stomach and figured that I would probably be all right. But low and behold I invaded by the little amoebas and caused to run to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Actually it was not that bad but after three days of it I decided that maybe I should get checked out just in case. So the school sent me to the clinic where I received my jar.
Now I have given urine samples before but I do not think that I have ever given a stool sample. Mind you this jar was not really that big in fact it was a baby food jar. And I sort of stared at it for a little bit not exactly sure how things were going to work. Of course this is not a set of vocabulary that I have in Spanish nor would it really be that easy to explain even in English. But I had all sorts of questions about aim and what if it overflows and how should I hold it. But the woman said that I needed to have it back before 4 PM and it was already 3 PM. And I really wanted to carry around the jar for as little time as possible. So I ate a snack and headed for the bathroom. It was actually easier than I thought. I managed with out making a mess and twenty minutes later I had my results back. Yep I had amoebas and I a high level of something else yeast I think. So i headed to the regular doctor who after poking me a bit and reading the lab results gave me two prescriptions one for the amoebas and another to bring back the good bacteria after I finished the first ones.
So I have finished the first meds and now I am on the second one and I am feeling much better I just hope that all those little suckers are dead and that I do not have to poop in any more baby food jars in the future.
3 comments:
tmi jacob. a little tmi.
Wow Jacob. You clearly have not been in Central America for very long. Just wait, it will happen again. But perhaps you'll get so used to it, as I have, that you don't even have to do a sample anymore, you just go straight to the pharmacy and get some drugs and you get to skip all the fun, inbetween bits. Why did you wait three days????
In the year total that I have have traveled in Central America it is the first time that I have actually gone to a doctor the other times I just let things ride and sort them out by themselves. I waited three days partly because it was the weekend of Semana Santa.
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