What started out as a productive day yesterday quickly turned into a nightmare. I woke up at 8am and felt okay, maybe a little hot but okay. By 9am I was feeling a little tired but was okay. When Suzie returned form using the internet at UB to send some urgent emails we headed into San Martin and began surveying the households that needed to be visited. Suzie and I had talked previously that we had wanted to have our “cultural brokers”(Mrs. Tita and Mrs. Alicia) help us identify all the Spanish and Maya speaking households, that’s way we could tackle these households first so that they would not have to come out with us everyday for the entire day since we are almost done with surveying all sections. As we l divided up the street we Tita and Alicia began pointing out all the houses that were non-English. Our first house was a Mayan house but the woman of the house spoke fairly good English but needed some questions translated because she did not understand them that well. I often wonder how well the questions are being translated and whether the questions are being interpreted in a totally different way. As we continued through the questions I started having mild cramps but they were not terribly painful. We then thanked the woman of the household and continued to the next household. While walking I used anti-bacterial and wiped my hands and then took an Aspirin with 2 gulps of the purified water. Our next household was a mother of two boys who had just moved into San Martin a few weeks ago. I introduced myself, asked if she would consent, she agreed and I started the survey process. Halfway through, I started to get more painful cramps but I tried to keep a straight face and finish the survey. Towards the end of the survey I had started to sweat profusely and I excused myself and went outside of the house to catch a fresh breath of air. It seemed like an eternity passed in those 10 minutes as Tita was also trying to get registration information about the households for the City council. By then I was writhing in pain. I gestured to Tita and told her that I was not feeling great and was going to walk home. She texted Alicia as I started walking home. Less than 25 feet away I started becoming photosensitive and decided to sit on a concrete fence to catch my breath and drink my water. I noticed that my hearing was becoming sharper/dull or muted (hard to explain). My thoughts were: “Great, now I’m going to pass out here and I cant even contact my parents”. Suddenly Alicia and Suzie were around me asking me if I was okay and we decided that it would be best to move under a shade. As I sat in the shade all I could think was “I need to get home”. The head of the household came out and asked if I was okay and offered to take me home. Within minutes we were in his car and on our way bumping because of the unpaved road. This movement did not sit well with my stomach and I had to ask him to stop 3 times so that I could open the door and vomit. Not a good look.
After 5 minutes we were home and I rushed into the bathroom and sat under the cool shower. By then Suzie had gone to the local store and purchased Gatorade to replenish my lost electrolytes. After taking a few sips I still felt sick and decided to lie down with the fan blowing over my body. Any sudden movement felt uncomfortable and I wondered why this had happened. To deal with the painful cramps I decided to try to take aspirin once again and hopefully I would be able to keep it down. After 30-45 minutes of more pain the cramps became a little subdued and I was able to close my eyes an drift off in a light sleep. Suzie then called Dr. McKay and Dr. Hoare who jointly agreed that I should take the day off and rest until Monday. The rest of the day was spent with me sleeping in bed and trying to keep food down. The entire night was spent restlessly and I decided to watch “Coco avant chanel” by 3am the pain had subsided and I was able to sleep.
Friday morning I woke up at 9am ate some breakfast and was on the alert for any uneasiness, by 10am I was convinced that I was okay and headed to the UB library to do some homework and a quiz. By 5pm I had finished majority of the work and was not as stressed as I was earlier in the week. In 2 weeks I will be officially done with this class.
No comments:
Post a Comment