I woke up on Monday October 14th feeling a little off. Very slow to rise and as I gained enough energy to get to my feet the room began to spin. I was nauseous. I thought to myself, “ok…today I’m going to take it slow.” What I didn’t realize was “slow” wasn’t going to be slow enough. I spent the majority of my morning on the toilet. Gross I know, but roll with me – I’m trying to set the scene. Today was grocery day….in Uganda you make a day out of it. It then hit me hard. “I can’t leave the house”, I thought. Just the sunshine glaring off the tile on our front porch put my stomach in knots. I laid down as the rest of the house left for the market. As I lay there the aches and pains grew with the nausea, I knew I needed to go. I called for a car. Arriving at the nearest clinic, I walked in slowly trying not to make any sudden uneasy movements. I saw the Doc and explained what was up, and he agreed that I needed to be tested; so I went to the back to get some blood work done. With me I carried a tan plastic bag…just in case. As I turned the corner two nurses were waiting for me….and I knew it – I had 2 seconds before projection. I said “sorry”, and proceeded to puke into my plastic bag. If you can ever recall vomiting in your past you’ll agree that everything around you goes mute in that moment. I heard nothing. I just wanted that demon bug that was tearing my stomach apart to end up in that plastic bag. In the midst of it all I noticed a bunch of sandal wearing African feet running
around me. That is when I noticed I had a hole in my bag; more than a hole really, it was like there was no bottom to my bag, so the bag was useless. They helped me out, cleaned me up, stuck me with a needle and confirmed that I not only had a bacterial infection in my gut, but I had also been infected with malaria. “Wonderful” I said. ”What?” the doctor replied-Ugandans don’t have the most sarcastic sense of humor. He than began to fill me up with more fluid treatment than I have ever had to put in my entire body in the combined 33 years of my life. And if you’re anything like me you don’t like medicine; so I was not happy. After two hours they sent me home with some tablets that I was to take twice a day with whole milk, and in the span of those days I was to try to keep my stomach full of fatty foods. This was no good because I had no appetite – I had a bacteria eating away at my stomach. 3 days in bed popping tablets, drinking milk, and eating bread went by. I was feeling better, but my stomach felt like it had a new problem. So Friday came and I had a bible study to teach at 7am. I thought I would give it a shot since I had missed so many this week. I put two hours into the study and than told the crew I needed to go…back to the doctor. My stomach had a deep burning, bruising feeling underneath my rib cage. Turns out the malaria medicine ate an ulcer into my stomach on account that I didn’t eat enough fat and drink enough nasty whole goats milk – not really sure which animal it comes from.
But today is Saturday, and I feel great! I even played football (soccer) today. God is good!
-Jason Folkestad
Folkestads In Uganda 