My mind is all over the place today, the new drugs Quinine have some horrible side effects… Syd (my boss) popped around last night to see how I was, and he hooked me up with an appointment this morning with Dr Ma, who is the Chef de Mission for the PNG Paraolympic team and a very nice chinese doctor. His clinic looks bloody dodgy as hell, and when you go in, the ladies inside open the door (from the inside) sit you down, give you a thermometer to stick under you arm, get you to write your name and date of birth on a piece of paper – and then the good Dr Ma rushes through and grabs you. I needed my camera – as it was just a surreal moment for me, but of course -left that at home 🙂

Dr Ma was fantastic, and when I went through all the drugs that I was or had been taking – he shook his head “too much” he said.

We went through his book, symptoms etc – and we both agreed that the drugs were screwing with me and I am just getting poisoned by too many drugs. He then got two different rapid malaria test kits and run both tests – both of which came out negative. wtf!?! negative.

Either the quinine has done it’s job within 24hours, or I have just been getting poisoned by the hospital. The RDT (rapid kit) only detects a certain amount of parasite levels, so it’s possible that the malaria count has dropped below the threshold which gives a negative result. Either way – fucks knows, I have no idea…

Dr Ma wants me off the meds straight away – and boy, and I happy to oblige, I can’t cope with this anymore – it’s too hard. Just need to flush my system out – so Jacinta is going to put me through the liver cleansing diet.

I thought I would post a few photo’s, one of the quinine jabs from yesterday, a picture of me today (having lost now about 15kg since arriving in PNG), my medical bills for the past 2months, and the RDT kit.

For those of you back in NZ that know me – yes, that is me… Wish I did the Calder Stewart biggest loser competition 😉 no way I would have lost that… It’s too embarassing doing the before and after photos, but lets just say I can’t wear my old pants without them falling to the floor. lost over 10cm from my waist and 3cm neck, I haven’t checked any other sizes as those are the easy ones (trouser size and shirt size).

Maybe a weekend in Cairns might have to be on the cards…

So today, went back to the hospital to have yet another blood test, and yet again – still have both falciparum and vivax malaria, and the counts have doubled yet again.

Yup – I am now sick of being sick!!

So, the doctor then put me on to one of the senior consultants in the hospital, who said that he had never met a caucasian with the level of resistance to the medication as I have.  He said that quite often Papua New Guineans are resistant…  yeah well – that made me feel 100% better…

The next treatment is a 7 day course of Quinine – the loading dose of 20ml (yes 20ml!!!) via injection – 10ml in each ass cheek.  holy shit.  Even the nurse went back to the doctor to confirm the dosage.. 20ml doesn’t sound much, but trust me – it is a freaking huge amount..

Jacinta took me back to work – and I grabbed a muffin as I have to keep the blood sugars up.  Got settled in, then rode the lift to our other office where I ended up almost passing out on the ground.  I was a mess, the doctor and nurse advised that I would have hearing loss as a side effect, but they didn’t tell me about the dizzyness, vertigo, fell like I want to die feeling…

So I got a lift home, where it has taken an hour or so to feel like I could actually walk somewhere – but I can barely hear..  and in a few hours, I need to take the 2nd round of drugs.  every 8 hours for 7 days, with a bit more fancidar thrown in on the 3rd day…

I am now down to a very slight (for me) 86kg, so the good thing is – I don’t have far to go for my target 80kg.  When I arrived in PNG 6 months ago – I was hovering at 100 kilo’s, so needless to say – most of my clothes don’t fit anymore 🙂

till next time 🙂