Hospital

On Monday I started to feel sick after lunch. I figured it was nothing. Sadly, the pain became worse and worse and I couldn’t sleep at all. It hurt to stand, to sit, but even worse to lie down. I had fever and chills and the worst pain in my abdomen. Finally at 2pm I couldn’t take it any longer so I got our on site doctor. I had to walk about 300 yards to our clinic and I barely made it. It hurt to breath and much worse to walk. The doctor thought it was appendicitis. He gave me a shot that did absolutely nothing for me. The pain just kept getting worse. Finally when my boss woke up I told him I had to go to a hospital. At 9am we left.

It’s rainy season and the main highways here are dirt roads so that means the roads are in terrible condition right now. Every bump was excruciatingly painful. I was wincing and grimacing like I never had before. Then the car broke down for no apparent reason. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no plan for what to do. Luckily, not 10 minutes after we broke down an expat friend of mine was driving past and offered to take me to the hospital. I endured more terrible bumps and slipping and sliding in the mud until we finally reached the hospital.

I went to Mumi Hospital which is run by Glencore, a Swiss company that is the world’s largest mineral trading company. It was supposed to be the best in the area and happened to be the closest as well. I filled out the paper work and then started answering questions in Swahili. The problem is when you’re learning a language if you’ve never been in a situation before you won’t have the vocabulary to deal with it. It was so frustrating trying to communicate what I was feeling in Swahili. All I could say was “My stomach really hurts!”

They ran some tests and concluded I had an infection that had caused the inflammation of my abdomen muscle. They started treating me with antibiotics and anti inflammatory drugs. They wanted to keep me for 4 days until I had finished the meds they needed to inject into my veins. Since we have an on site doctor I convinced them to release me into his care.

So the next day I went back to the mine feeling better. I woke up on Thursday morning with pain in my back. I hoped it would go away but it just got worse and worse. The pain continued to be terrible until Saturday. From them on I’ve felt human again. I am so happy to be feeling better!

I’ve had a lot of strange, scary, stressful experiences in Congo, but I think this one takes the cake. It’s horrible to be alone when you’re sick. It’s horrible to be in a third world country when you’re sick. It’s horrible to deal with health care in a foreign language. The worse part was just not knowing what was wrong or how serious it actually was. I am so grateful for all of my friends who prayed for me. I know God healed me from whatever it was that I had. Thank you all and thank you Jesus!