A brief history...

May 2005
My friend Gretchen gives a last-ditch effort to keep me in the states by informing me about all of the potential diseases I can get in 3rd-world countries in Latin America.

July 2005
Our Peace Corps Medical officer reinforces Gretchen's horrific stories with actual data about all the fun diseases we can get while we're here with all the information about terrible symptoms that we will experience if we're ever lucky enough to catch one.

July 27, 2006
Michelle wakes up with a headache and takes some Tylenol. As the day progresses, she feels worse and worse but has to do some work for the technology project in San Salvador.

July 28th, 2006
Michelle wakes up with a SPLITTING headache (eyes feeling like there are daggers inside twisting around) and feels like someone has been beating her all night long. Every muscle in her body ACHES and she feels like she's going to collapse. Her throat hurts. Her stomach hurts. She's nautious. And she's freezing. She goes back to sleep until noon when she pulls out her medical booklet (that every PCV gets at swearing-in) and reviews all the scary Latin America disease information. Fever is a common symptom with all the fun diseases, so she takes hers. 101.5. Malaria and Dengue appear to offer the wonderful symptoms that she's been feeling so she confers with the medical staff in the capital and is told that she needs to get tested immediately for Dengue because she can die from it. She travels to the capital (in car comfort, thanks to her friend Ernie that is willing to take her). The test takes about 3 minutes and comes back positive. She has Dengue.

July 29th-July 30th, 2006
Sleeping. Taking Tylenol. Drinking water. Repeat. And eating a bit. Rash appears all over body. Michelle has difficulty sleeping at night. Fever comes and goes.

July 31st, 2006
Michelle's blood is tested again. Bad news. Platelet levels have fallen from the normal 150,000-450,000 level to 126,000. Medical staff advise Michelle to continue resting, drinking water, and taking Tylenol.

August 1st, 2006
Michelle meets with medical staff to review previous tests and set up additional blood test for following morning. Fever is gone. Rash is gone (well, almost). If platelet levels are normal again, she can return home. If not, she continues to stay in San Salvador on a watch. Why? Because if the numbers continue to fall, she has internal bleeding (probably). And if they go up, then she doesn't.

You can never have too many stories in Peace Corps! Stay tuned...And don't worry. I won't die. Peace Corps doesn't like it when its volunteers die. :) For more info on Dengue, click here and read "What is Dengue?".