Sick Day #3

I woke up this morning with intense muscles aches and just overall fatigue. I felt like I was hit by giant Tap-Tap (the main form of transportation here in Haiti. It’s pretty much a small pick-up truck with a make-shift seating benches and hood covering located in the bed of the truck. It is painted with very colorful decorations, covering every inch of paintable space) when I tried to move my limbs to turn off the alarm clock. I struggled to even use my fingers to turn the switch from on to off. Oh boy. I’ve been having fevers on and off for the last three days now and been taking some medication, but today, oh boy, today was something different. Definitely “HIT” me. Really hard as a matter of fact. So I had to listen to my body, really, it gave me no choice whatsoever but to stay put in my bed. I called Stephanie, the finance director, and told her that I am not able to work this morning. I will rest for a while and see how it goes. If I feel better, I will go to the office to work. So everyone was super caring and came and visited me throughout the morning, but every time someone came to visit I had to get out of bed to open the door for them. This happened for about every 30 minutes or so, which was the opposite of what I wanted. Haha, but everyone was worried, so it was okay. It was funny, because every person that came to the door was bewildered to see me bent over and talking out of breath. They all asked, “What’s wrong?” “Are you okay?” “Is your stomach bothering you?” My response to all was, “I don’t have any strength and standing up is very painful at the moment.” By which, they would all say, “Oh okay, well get back into bed. You should rest.” Haha, I just think this is so ironic, because I was in bed resting, until someone knocked on the door. They all mean well and I am very grateful for their caring. Even the adolescent boys were like, “Oh my goodness Lori. I will check on you periodically.” Haha, I assured them that I was going to be fine and no need to check on me every 30 minutes. I just needed to rest. So I downed a lot of Vitamin C and multi-vitamins. The cooks were very generous to bring juice and an apple for me.

By about 2pm, I finally had some energy to go brush my teeth and make some noodle soup for myself to eat. I moved around like I was carrying 100 kilos on my back. I had to use the walls in the hallways to support myself. Man, it felt weird. I sat down and ate some noodles. Some yummy veggie noodle soup (Thanks Portland Tzu Chi Family!). So every time I leave my room, something would happen with the children. Something that would get my attention and then I would have to go deal with it. So I am sitting there eating my noodle soup quietly, when all of a sudden I see out of the corner of my eyes a child that was walking around with a walker for physical therapy, being stuck in a corner. He had walked all the way into a corner in the hall way and was stuck. He cried for literally five minutes and no one was there to rescue him. So I got up slowly and walked over to him and turned him and the walker around. That was when I noticed that he had explosive diarrhea. The smell was so strong that I had to step back a little bit to catch my breath. I picked him up, it was quite hard, since I had barely any strength in my arms. I took him to the washing area and had one of the aunties wash and change him. So this is a typical occurrence at the orphanage. But today, I was just in no shape in dealing with all this. I walked back to my room and crashed again. The crashing continued until dark and once again, I got up to go eat some soup for dinner. I felt that my energy level was higher and I was able to walk better now. I ended the night with finishing the rest of the September reports for all the children at Lamardelle. Good thing I got all of them done. That is a huge load off of my mind now.

Time for bed, while continued time for bed I guess! I hope I feel good enough for work tomorrow! Good night!