It’s Not Malaria

Update on my dad’s malaria episode.

He was flown to Maputo where there are better facilities and he can get better care. He realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to stay at home when you’re sneezing blood all over the place and throwing up everything you eat.

Sorry for the visual; it’s making me queasy as well but that’s how he described it. 🙁

I am very grateful for his colleagues’ care and support for making it possible to do that because when he arrived there, he was told that he doesn’t have malaria after all. Toinks! Now I know what Dr House’s patients feel.

I’m glad they diagnosed him correctly now, though. I mean, what would have happened if he kept on taking the wrong meds?? The House episode* which caused Foreman so much anguish suddenly flashes in my mind and makes me shudder.

He has Dengue fever, though, so I dunno if I should rest easy because it can still be deadly. But I guess being a survivor of that disease (my brother and I contracted it together back in high school) has made me less afraid of it. I’m still praying, though, because he has very low platelet count now and is not out of the woods yet. Still, I’m much more positive now.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my friends who expressed their concern for him (and for me) and who offered their prayers for his recovery. You have touched me more than you’ll know. I cannot thank you enough! 🙂

*In this episode, Foreman mistakenly diagnoses a patient and she is given immunosuppressing radiation treatment for it. Later they learn that she had nothing more than a staph infection, so the radiation therapy killed her immune system, essentially dooming her to a painful death.