Tropically Diseased

I have a real excuse for not posting for a while. I swear. For the last week and a half I have had Dengue Fever. It was without a doubt the most miserable week of my life so far… and I really, really hope I never have a worse week. It started out as just feeling really tired. We had just returned from the mall and a movie (Megamind 3D, which was actually fairly entertaining), it was around 7:00 pm and I just wanted to go to bed. Which was quite opposite of my recent norm, as I had been staying up until at least 1:00 or 2:00 am and getting usually around 5-6 hours of sleep. So at first I just thought that it was just the night-owling that I’d been doing catching up with me. And then I started getting a bit cold while wearing jeans, shoes and a long sleeve shirt in our house. Which just doesn’t happen. So I went to bed. I woke up the next morning with a terrible headache and feeling pretty worn out. I pretty much stayed in bed for the next three days trying to wait out a fever that was ranging from 99.5 F to 102.8 F. It was three of the worst days ever. My eyeballs hurt like hell, my back hurt like hell, my knees, shoulders, head and all my muscles just plain hurt.  I would go to bed sometimes feeling quite warm then wake up freezing cold. And sometimes I would wake up freezing cold with blankets piled on top of me but I would be sweating uncontrollably. It was weird. And quite unpleasant. The worst part about it was I would have dreams that I was feeling great, then when I awoke I would feel worse than ever.  Finally on the fourth morning I woke up and took my temperature and the thermometer read 103.6.

So it was time to go to the hospital. I had to wait for the truck to get back from the field in the early afternoon, but then it was on to the emergency room. I got to the ER, signed in, got triaged, and sat. For 3 hours, all the while alternately freezing and burning up. In that time a total of 4 people were called to be seen. The rest gave up and left I suppose, because when the head nurse finally came out with the doctor to see the patients who were waiting there were only 5 of us. And I happened to be first in line to be seen, which was cool, but also it meant that I had been waiting the longest, which was discouraging. I told the doctor my symptoms and he said that he suspected it was Dengue, which didn’t really surprise me. So I had a blood test (Yes mom, the needle was sterile. Despite the less than amazing conditions they still run a real hospital). Which came back positive. (Surprise!) I got this cool paper with the results on it.

So I was referred to the Dengue Management Unit at the hospital in the morning where I was to have another blood test, this one to measure my platelet levels. The reason being that if my platelets were to drop too low as a result of the Dengue I might start bleeding from places including, but not limited to, my gums eyes and ears. Luckily my platelet levels were fairly normal even though I still had a fever and was pretty achy. But at least now I knew that I wasn’t going to bleed out. The doctor wanted to see me again the next day, and so I went for another blood test feeling great, at least comparatively. And I was discharged since I was on day 8 of the illness and I was feeling alright. So I will spend the next couple of weeks in Trinidad, my last couple, sitting around the house and helping to process. This illness and my pending recovery mean that my field season is effectively over. Which is a bummer. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks I’m afraid.

Tobago, and Farewells

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind! We finished up our FIBR guppy mark-recapture, celebrated the Hindu holiday Diwali with our village, vacationed on beautiful Tobago and then began and finished the Funk guppy mark-recapture. Not only that, a new crop of interns have arrived, and a few of the veterans have left.

I don't have time to elaborate on the happenings currently, but here are a few pictures to tide you over until I write again.

Halfway

So yesterday marked my halfway point, and things are going swimmingly here in balmy Trinidad. We've been working extra hard the past couple of weeks (hence the lack of blogging activity) in order that we get an extra day off to make a trip to beautiful Tobago! Work has been going well, we did indeed gain an extra day off, and thank God we were ahead of schedule because Hurricane Tomas passed right by our little island, and showered us with a steady rain that would have certainly put us at least a day behind schedule had we not been working in the lab instead of in the field like we were previously scheduled to do. So Tobago is on. Except not how we had anticipated. We actually are sticking around an extra couple of days in order to participate in a celebration with our neighbors. We live in a Hindu village of about 50 people, and this week marks the end of their holiday, Divali. So we'll stick around and participate in the lighting of candles, busting of bamboo and fireworks. Which is really exciting, I think it will be great. The preparations look amazing so far. Pictures will follow.

We have also on our couple of days off done some great stuff. We went to Caroni swamp and saw some great birds, mostly the Scarlet Ibis, of which I have a few pictures. This bird is really quite striking.

Also I have been spending some time up at our other house, called "The Duchess's" (it is owned by a supposed wife of some duke in Norway... no one really knows...). It was a very relaxing time, as there is no electricity, and very few people. It is nestled up in the Northern Range of Trinidad, and is very hard to get to, seriously the SUV we have could not make it up the hill carrying four people, so half of us had to get out and walk.

                                           

Internet time is at a premium so I am finding it harder to and harder to make posts here, which is unfortunate, because I really do like blogging. I will make more of an effort to write posts (I swear this time. Really.)