“I’d rather have malaria.”
Have you had it?
I’ve never asked but do you need mosquito nettings around your bed like they do on tv?
Yes. I have had malaria. I was thinking just yesterday how in our first full year here in Sentani that I had it three times within two months. That left me strung out and so tired. I’ve had the two prevalent types here that we call tersiana and tropica. Tropica can lead to cerebral malaria which is really difficult.
Tersiana malaria isn’t all that bad when caught early. Three days of feeling bad and tired and then you’re usually strong enough to get back to work. It takes six weeks to regain your red blood cells.
Tropica is worse because you are super-tired, often with impressive headaches where it hurts to even blink your eyes. The treatment for that was quinine. You had to take it at an exact schedule. The medicine played havoc on your stomach, often causing vomiting. So, you would take an anti-nausea med first, wait about 45 minutes, then the quinine.
Not only did the quinine make you nauseous, but it also caused you too see things and hear things. With me, things would be disconnected from each other, sort of floating in the world. I would become dizzy to the point of lying on the floor hoping I wouldn’t be thrown off the circling disc. I would hear symphonies with tinkling crystal in the foreground.
We used to have mosquito netting but now we have air conditioning we don’t need it. I think perhaps I have had 50 bouts of malaria and 1 bout of very memorable dengue fever. But, the odd thing is, I haven’t had malaria in many, many years.