Today I had my first successful solid poop! This may seem like a graphic, or silly, thing to feel the need to update my friends and family on, but at this point in my life this is a huge victory. There are 4 trainees here, that I know of, that have either picked up a bacteria or parasite, and intestinal problems is something we battle daily. In a world where it’s a struggle to even satisfy your most basic needs (the other day I tried to order a veggie sandwich for lunch and got rice with oil), finally having some normal bodily function is a huge deal. It’s all about the small victories in life. After days of constipation, days of stomachic spasms and nausea, bouts of diarrhea, days without pooping at all, poops that are soft serve or the consistency of baby poop, a mixture of half and half, and days where I felt like Brittney Murphy (I think?) in the move Speed where I would get the bang and run to the bathroom only to be disappointed with a rabbit terd, I am proud to report that on Thursday, July 15th, I had my first normal, successful poop in Burkina Faso. It took 23 long days, but we finally got there. I’d like to thank the delicious food at Restaurant Chinese and my good friend Nestcafe, who undoubtedly played a big role in this win.
However, only hours after this success I drank the welcome water given to us when we went to interview a local family on their daily schedule. So now I play the waiting game…
*It was too good to last. Far too good. Not sure if it was the Welcome Water or something else, but right after breakfast on Friday I found myself running to the bathroom. This was followed by nausea, drive heaving, severe stomach cramps and fear of having it come out both ends at once. Every time I eat something my stomach cries. This continued all day Friday, Saturday, and, yup, on into Sunday. One more day of this and I get to submit a stool sample into the PCMOs (Peace Corps Medical Officers), which will be fun…
** I got lucky and things calmed down a bit on Sunday and I had a completely peaceful Monday, but then Tuesday my stomach started rumbling and I could feel something brewing. I feared the worst. Sure enough, after dinner I started to feel the bang and had an explosive evening. Was even woken up in the middle of the night to poop, and continued to be miserable all day today, Wednesday. Finally at around 7:30 pm, after about my 11 “bowel” movement of the day and after 2 hours of going every 15 to 30 minutes, I talked to Jean-Luc (one of the PCMOs). He suspected a bacterial infection and immediately started me on antibiotics since it’s lasted 6 days. Tomorrow I submit a MIF kit (stool sample), which was a lot of fun creating… to verify what is wrong and hopefully be able to cure it. I’ve never been so sick of pooping before in my life.
*** On the 9th day of diarrhea I feared that the antibiotics did not work, especially on the 10th day after I had finished the meds and was on my 5th trip to the bathroom. But on the 11th day things looked hopefully and, thank God, the 12th day was good. Finally back to normal. It took 2 seconds to drink the water and 12 days to undo the damage. Well, at least I’m past my first African illness, hopefully smooth sailing from here!
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