Through the Seasons

Reality Check

*Warning:  This post is long.  It’s a good story of my adventure though so read on.  Take breaks as needed. 

Okay, it’s time to finally face facts.  My morning sickness is bad, or severe as the doctor put it.  I’ve been on medicine daily for five weeks and still have plenty of bad days.  Even on the good days the medicine itself knocks me out so either way I’m bed ridden a lot.  And if you know what kind of medicine I’ve been taking you know why I’m so tired of it and why I’m sort of glad to be out of it. 

Last Thursday I decided to start trying to manage the sickness with nothing but natural remedies such as eating before lifting my head in the morning, eating frequently throughout the day, and all that jazz.  I had a good day.  Then I woke up at midnight feeling terrible and ended up vomiting every 30 to 60 minutes from then on out.  Jonathan arranged for us to get a ride into the doctor Friday morning at 9:30.

That was the first time I saw the prenatal doctor in town.  He’s fantastic.  He ordered some blood tests to make sure I didn’t have anything outside of morning sickness.  We did the lab work then waited for the test results.  I was still vomiting and so sick I couldn’t sit up.  The staff there was so wonderful and accommodating I couldn’t believe it.  They totally vacated one (of the two) examining rooms so I could lie down.  They even brought me a pillow.  I heard “pole sana” so much on Friday I’ll never forget what it means.  (“very sorry” as in “I feel very sorry for you”… awww…)

After an hour wait the doctor went over the test results with us.  Apparently I’m one of those women who have severe morning sickness called [insert that technical term I forgot here].  So I told him that I just couldn’t continue functioning this way and didn’t know what to do.  Without medicine (of which I haven’t been able to find here) I can’t hold down a drop of water.  He said that what women here do is have an injection of a vitamin B complex.  I heard that same thing in the States before I left so I decided to have that done.  Injection though didn’t mean “shot” like I thought.  It meant IV.  That IV takes 3-4 hours to administer which they were ready to do right then.  Fine with me.  I was miserable.

As we walked to the “Recovery Room” where I had my IV Jonathan called an SIL nurse who has toured that hospital to make sure we were safe getting that done there and she said we were.  When they brought everything into the room we asked for new needles, bags, and syringes (just in case).  They assured us everything was new and we watched them unseal each package so we knew they were. 

That’s when the real “fun” began.  I won’t go into all the details but lets just say I don’t have good veins for IV’s.  But they got it on their second try and I laid there for over 3 hours with the liquid slowly drip, drip, dripping in.  By then it was 5:00 and our ride back to the campsite was leaving.  The nurse said it would be fine to stop there since I had gotten so much in (probably 85%).  After being there for 7 hours, seeing the doctor twice, having blood tests, a urinalysis, and an IV of vitamin B complex, the bill came to about $18.  The interesting thing to us was that you had to pay for each step along the way before actually having it done.  (So we would pay to see the doctor and then see him.  We paid for the lab work then had it done.  Etc.)

So we left and I felt okay as we rode the bumpy, dusty streets back to town but just not great.  I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the afternoon before and it had been a long day.  I held on for as long as I could but ended up vomiting in the car just before reaching the gate to the campsite.  (Sorry fellow passengers!!)  Thank goodness I had my throw up bowl with me.

So right now it is Saturday afternoon and I’ve made it this far with no vomiting.  I’ve been slowly reintroducing food and liquid back into my system and hopefully the vitamin B stuff will work for 2-3 weeks like the doctor said it should.  I hope to never have to have it done again but it beats daily medicine that only half-works.  I’ve heard that when women have severe morning sickness it’s more likely to last the entire pregnancy.  Hardly seems fair, does it?  But we’ll see how this does and go from here.

Sorry I didn’t have any pictures of myself there at the doctor.  I was way too unwell to have my picture taken but now I wish there were some for documentation sake.  It was very surreal to be lying in an African hospital.  (Well we do have ONE picture of me getting the IV but I look way too pitiful.  It’s not quite share-able. )  There are other pictures but after an hour trying to upload them… I give up… for now…

Oh!  And we even got to use a little of our Swahili.  There were moments that we actually communicated what we intended.  Outside of that we were grateful they knew some English.  That’s just not the place for miscommunication!