Laid low in the tropics...

Throughout our trip I have been the healthiest of the three of us. Although Becky and Chris have not really been sick, there have been days when they have not been up to snuff. Not me, though. Until recently I have been the perfect picture of tropical health.

Now I have been struck down twice in two weeks:

1) On the eve of our trip to the northern Uganda town of Apac, the most "malarious" place on earth, I felt the rumblings of a facial blemish forming beneath my cheek, just under my right eye. I sensed that this was not a garden-variety, junior high pimple -- it came from somewhere deeper, near the very core of my being. I knew it would be big, but I was naive. This was, in fact, the largest pimple in history. Dr. Linda generously declared it a a staph infection, but I know in my heart that I was laid low by a zit.

The swelling soon sealed my right eye shut, and my cheek throbbed with pain. My face became lopsided and my speech slurred. I was well taken care of, though, since all of my friends here are doctors. Becky began referring to me lovingly as Quasimodo. I preferred Elephant Man, but Quasimodo works in a pinch. We settled into a routine, and I began planning my life as a facially warped version of my former self. Should I get a mask like Zorro? Or maybe like the Phantom of the Opera? Tough decisions all around.

One day last week when it seemed the dam would never burst, the dam burst. It was as if all the stress and excitement of this trip had decided to manifest itself in one glorious explosion. I won’t bore you with the details, but we got most of it on tape for posterity. YouTube here we come! I bet I can slip it into the documentary, somehow.

Although I am still on the mend from a zit that inflated my face like a balloon, Africa decided that I have not yet faced enough adversity. ‘You can get a pimple anywhere’, Africa cackled madly, ‘But let’s see how you deal with a real African disease!’

2) Last weekend we took a jaunt to picturesque Kabale in southwest Uganda. It is in this quaint, mountain town that the Ugandan government has decided to begin a comprehensive Indoor Residual Spraying program for malaria control. We wanted to witness it firsthand.

Shortly into the 7-hour trip on typically potholed African roads, I was struck by several warning signs: Splitting headache, muscle aches, mild nausea, loss of my infamously robust appetite, general feeling of weirdness, etc. I tried to blame road conditions, but Dr. Linda suggested that I go to the doctor on our return.

After being poked and prodded by the maddeningly efficient Dr. Stockley, and producing all manner of "samples", I was told that I have bilharzia and amebiasis.

Click the links to read more.!

Is there a silver lining?, you ask. Why, yes! While bilharzia and amebiasis are cheap and easy to cure in Africa, it is much harder to diagnose in the developed world…it’s just not on their collective radar. So if I had developed symptoms in Europe, no one would have known what to do. Furthermore, since we eat the same food, swim in the same lakes, do the same things, we sent Becky and Chris in despite lack of symptoms. Chris was clean, but my little Becky had the amebiasis.

So our drug regimen will last for the next week, and then we’ll be fine.