Like in all other countries where I've worked, I got sick here in Kenya. The bummer of it all was that it was right before my birthday. What kind of sick did I get? Unsurprisingly, I contracted a GI sickness that put me in the bathroom for hours at a time.
Once again, my body showed its poison of preference as parasites; every year for the last five years I have contracted at least one kind of parasite. They've varied - my body is nothing if not open-minded - but it does have its favorites. One of its favorite parasites is amoebas, and that is what I got this time. Luckily, I now know the signs pretty well and this strain was less severe than when I got them Cambodia, but it was still unpleasant. My body temperature started to climb and I became lethargic. I felt like going to the bathroom all of the time, and food seemed gross. Bloody diarrhea was my least favorite part.
My housemate recommended I go to an open-air health clinic nearby because of its affordability, short waits, and rapid testing. I was told to bring along a plastic container of my stool to speed up the diagnosis. It was odd to tote around a tub of my own waste to the clinic; I'm used to using sterilized lab kits to do my business for tests. The clinic was also pretty lo-fi; with an outside campus, there weren't many lights or fans in the facilities, and the clinic's lab had one guy hanging out on a chair in front of a counter of simple testing equipment. The doctor talked to me for about 5 minutes about my ailments until my test results came back - an undeniable case of amoebiasis, he said. He quickly made the prescription and wished me good luck. The cost was $40 all in, for lab tests, meds, and doctor time. I probably would have paid more in the US for the same case with insurance. Sometimes (perhaps most of the time?), we really don't need all of the state-of-the-art "bells and whistles" when we need medical help - the basics do the job just as well, and for less money. Being in an open-air facility was beautiful, too. I found the experience a lot nicer than some of the more sterile clinic experiences I've had in other countries.
I had gone to a Kenyan GI doctor the week prior with emerging stomach discomfort (before the parasites come comfortable), and she had called to follow up with me the day after my diagnosis. She was skeptical of the results and thought the amoebas were a red herring to something more chronic like IBD. She requested to schedule a colonoscopy, but I politely declined; I was feeling better, I didn't want to have a terrible and invasive procedure "just in case" without my regular doctor.
At the end of the same week, I went to another health clinic in Karen, where some colleagues had recommended I try their services. Since I was already in the throes of healthcare, I thought, "why not?!", and determined I wanted to check my treatment. I arrived in a woodsy camp and found myself surrounded by white people clinic, which was a stark contrast from the other clinics I had been to; I didn't feel like I was in Kenya anymore but back in NYC, and I felt a bit uncomfortable. The doctors were European, and the patients all looked like they probably had gold club memberships. The doctor there confirmed I was being properly treated. They then commented that they didn't see amoebiasis very much at all in their practice and that it was a "disease for the locals". This bothered me tremendously; it sounded to me like they were racist - that their immigrant clientele was well-off enough to not be associated in places where locals hang out and thus impervious to those pesky "low-grade diseases", or something. I did not like that one bit.
The good news is that the original health clinic was correctly treating me. The bad news was that I spent more money than needed to make sure that was the case, and felt troubled as a result of the other opinions and racial commentary.
My birthday was tainted by the pangs of parasite treatment, but there will be others to celebrate.nMr. CT Lawyer sweetly conspired with one of my colleagues and surprised me with a gluten-free passion-fruit cake at the office, presented with clapping and singing by a group of my peers. I was delighted by the surprise but sad that I didn't feel up to gorging myself on it, so I ate a little bit. It was delicious.
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