Evacuated

Well I had 3 days on the boat before I had to be evacuated by the speed boat and taken to the hospital. I have lost track of time a little bit, but 6 days ago we landed in Iquitos. We were hit with a wall of humidity and 32 degrees (even tho it was 7 pm). Iquitos is the coolest town i have ever seen! it's surrounded by jungle and the Marion river, and the only mode of transportation is a tuk-tuk or a motorcycle. You see families of 4 riding around a motorcyle throughout the streets! Once we checked into our hotel we had a bit to eat, found the boulevard (which is a boardwalk by the water where there is alot of street vendors and bars) and had a drink to celebrate making it to Iquitos and getting on the boat the next day!.. the next day we took a bus from Iquitos to nautu, then a motorized boat out to the river boats. It's pretty small with the rooms having barely enough room for 2 small bunks and a fan. Other than the rooms there is a front and back deck and a screened room on top. There are two washrooms for all 30 people on the boat, they are a tiny room with a sink, toilet and a shower head at top.. The toilet is pretty funny, there isn't a tank or a flush, you have to fill up a bucket beside the toilet and throw it down the toilet bowl. We drove from 11 am that day until 4 pm the next day straight to get to our location for the research. While the boat was moving the deck was had a nice breeze, taking your mind off the incredible heat. That night there was a thunderstorm cooling everything down. I fell asleep quickly only to wake up the boat an hour later with a night terror in which was I screaming and proceeded to punch out the screen on our cabin door! Super embarrassed i tried to fix the door myself with some duct tape which did not work at all, so I eventually had to tell one of the professors who could speak Spanish and could get one of the crew to fix it. Other than that I slept like a baby. The next day I woke up with an uneasy stomach. Thinking it was just from the new food and the hot weather I didn't think it was a big deal. We woke up to pink and grey dolphins swimming beside the boat nad surrounded by the amazon. It was amazing! We had gotten off the large Marion river during the night and were now on a smaller river that meandered through the amazon forest called rio samiria. That day we had lectures all day to prepare us for the different bio excursion. The black caimans go out from 9pm until 1 am, the macaws from 5:30am till 9am, the terristrial transect (for monkeys) 7am-2pm, the dolphins 10am-2pm and the fishing from 10am-1pm. Basically we had to do everyone of those in the 8 days we were going to be at the site. We drove past a few villages scattered troughout the forest and on the way back to Iquitos plan on visiting them. I would post pictures but the internet connection is really bad here, but i have lots! Once the boat stopped we really realized the heat, and there was no escaping it. There was only power from 4pm-10pm at night so you didn't have any fans running inside, outside in the sun was unbearable and the shade was still high 20s. That night I went to bed early not feeling great. The next day I woke up at 5:30 to go out on the macaw observations, it was 3.5 hours on a boat and it was torture, my stomach pain was ten fold worse than the day before, I knew something was wrong. When i got back to the boat I had to go straight to lecture, and then finally spoke with the nurse with the help of one of my professors to translate. By that point it had been a whole day without being able to keep anything down, water or food, it was coming out both sides faster than i could put anything in. The Nurse was super nice, although i couldn't really understand what she was saying. She gave me some pink pills to settle my stomach, some tea, rehydration salts and soda crakers, non of which stayed inside me. The rest of that day I laid in bed between sleep, staring at the wall and doing some readings. I missed the rest of the lectures and tried to keep cool (which was hard because it was 36 degrees outside with 90% humidity and no power).. That night was awful. I maybe slept for an hour? I had to keep getting out of bed to either go to the bathroom or just walk around to take my mind off the pain. All i wanted was to be at home in my bed with my champ. I didn't want to wake anybody up so I decided I would have to wait until 6 in the morning when the cooks got up to make breakfast and people started to get out of bed for the different activities, it seemed like it was a lifetime away (it was only 11 pm). I will never forget that night, I remember sitting outside staring up at the stars praying that I would be ok because it did not feel like I was going to be. I knew something serious when i managed to fall asleep and woke up a few minutes later shivering uncontrollably (and it was 25 degrees that night), my eyes were so dry i couldn't cry any more and my mouth felt like sandpaper. At 5:30 the next morning the nurse came to check on me and found me a mess, not understanding what she was saying my roommate went to find one of the professors. She tried to give me more tea, she tried rubbing my stomach with ointment, she tried giving me tea to no sucess. She said that normally only one pill is necesary to get people feeling better, and she had given me 3 and didn't have anything more she could do. By 7am that morning the decision was made that i had to be transported to the hospital. Justin (the opwall cordinator and one of the bio professors and super nice) decided to come with me since he knew Iquitos best and could speak spanish. Within 20 minutes the speed boat was ready to go and they made me a bed. It took 4-5 hours by speed boat to get back to Nautu, then an hour taxi to get to Iquitos. I missed the gorgeous scenery because i was in and out of sleep that whole time. Once we arrived to Iquitos we checked into the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived, Justin contacted the insurance company to make sure they will cover the emergency evacuation cost of fuel and the hospital bills and then we went to this hospital. I was there for for the rest of the day. They had to give me 2.5 liters of iv liquid to get me hydrated. Then they had to give me an iv of antibiotics. Turns out I had contracted ameobic Dysentery. A parasite in the stomach/intestines that can kill you if not treated. They gave me a course of antibiotics to continue with for the next three days, 2 huge jugs of re hydration liquid and let me go. Since they dont have all the technology they couldn't gaurantee payment from my insurance company so i had to pay for everything out of my pocket, luckily 250 solas (peru money) is only 100 $ to me, not a huge expense to us in North America but definitely would be a stretch for the Peruvians that live here. The hospital was nothing like I expected, or had ever experienced. Not as sterile as we're used to in North America. The sheets i'm pretty sure weren't changed between patients because there was a huge stain on my bed, the IV hung by a metal hook on the ceiling and you had to carry it about your head when you went to the bathroom, there were a few annoying misquotes and they didn't have heart rate monitors attached to your arm, or computers. But the doctors and nurses treated me well and got me feeling better. They cleaned everything very well likes needles and what not and last night i started feeling better. We went back to the hotel, i tried to eat some dinner (3 days of nothing by this point). I slept much better last night, we were hopping to hop on a river boat that was leaving this morning to catch up to my group but by the time I got out of the hospital last night it was too late. So justin went this morning to the office to see if he could contact the boat (you can only radio the boat at 8 am or 5 pm) but no one was there because it's mothers day. So unless we can get a hold of the boat tonight, it looks like well be stuck in Iquitos for another 2 nights at least because once you radio them, the don't come and get you until the next day. It is kind of nice I have today to lay in a cool room with a fan focusing on feeling better, because although I am feeling much better I am by no means 100%. Also, if by tomorrow the symptoms aren't gone we can go back to the hospital instead of being stuck on a boat again. The bummer is that I am missing out on the part of the trip i was most looking forward to! I was pretty upset about having to leave the boat yesterday, but i knew that i didn't have any other choice. The professors have been really understanding and just want me to get better. I mean Chui Ling (one of the professors) sat with me yesterday, gave me a big hug and helped me pack my stuff up, in case I had to fly home. They said we'd sort out my grades when I am back with the group. Anyways, I am going to be fine, I will catch up to the boat tomorrow at the earliest or the 12th at the latest and will still have 6 days to enjoy it.. Then we'll be back in Iquitos doing other activities before I come home in 21 days! so that's my most recent adventure, although not one that i would choose to have. But I got to find out what it's like to be treated in a developing country's hospital and appreciate the health care in Canada no matter how flawed it may be.