I may have Malaria

Walking back from dinner the other night I started to feel myself go down hill fast. I always know when Im getting sick because the roots of my hair hurt. Thats right. Thats how I know, and my hair doesnt lie. Couple that with the almost instantaneous waterfall that began to flow from my nose and it was pretty clear that I had caught something.

The flu sucks no matter where you are, but put yourself in the middle of malaria country and the flu becomes a little something more than a minor inconvience. For someone like me (aka hypocondriac) this becomes a serious problem.

Upon feeling the first signs of my oncoming sickness I head straight to bed, hoping that a good night sleep will work itself out. Wrong. I wake up the next morning with a temperature over 100, body aches, a headache, a slight cough, and chills. Im exhausted too. Like holy crap I cant lift my hands to blow my nose exhasuted. A million things run through my head. I have AIDS. No I have mono. No i had mono when I was a teenager so i can't get it again. Right? It must be the water. Or the food. Something is wrong and that something will probably kill me. I reach over to grab our guidebook and thumb through to the malaria page. I go onto read (paraphrased of course)- Malaria is not to be fucked with. You can die bitch. Signs that you got malaria include fever, body aches, cough, headache and chills. Do you have these? You do? Well then you have malaria.

Aw shit. I have malaria! I knew it! Great now Im going to die and I never found out who won the Amazing Race or if the Cavs battled back to take the series against the Celtics. Oh well it was a good run.

Well theres only one thing left to do in this case, go get tested. Confirm my death sentence and make arrangements for my funeral. So Sabrina and I pack ourselves into a typically over crowded african bus and make our way to the clinic. I feel like shit. Like I want to die shit. Luckily for me, thanks to malaria i just might. We arrived at the clinic bus stop and the world is spinning. I havent eaten in about 30 hours and I feel like Im going to pass out. We walk into the clinic and they escort us into the room where they draw my blood. Oh great now Im really going to pass out. 10 minutes later the test confirms it, I'm a pussy. No malaria. I just have the flu. Ugh.

So I suffer through the next few days sweating through my clothes and watching Sabrina slowly go crazy from being couped up in a straw hut for 3 days. In the end I'm glad I didn't have Malaria, but I would like to pass on a piece of advice to the folks who write our travel books. Dont be so vague about the warning signs of Malaria. I mean seriously if the warning signs you describe are exactly like the flu well then isn't it more likely that you have the flu? The signs are so damn vague you end up sending paranoid idiots like myself into a tailspin. If you sneeze and cough twice you might have malaria. If you blink your eyes four times you might have AIDS. If you can hear yourself breathing out of your nose you're probably going to die. Unbelievable.