Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Tomorrow I'm heading back to my site

Tomorrow I'll be heading back to my site and I could not be happier about it. I have learned a lot in the past 2 weeks, here are some of the things I have learned:

1. Never ever ever take for granted you health. Thank God for it every day that you have it, because it can go away and when it does life gets a whole lot more difficult.
2. TV from the US is so great, it may sound sad, but it was a huge comfort, and I loved having it. I think it might be the best in the world, just a thought.
3. wifi is the greatest invention ever. I was able to talk to my family and friends for free, all thanks to wifi and the skype. What a life saver that was.
4. It's okay to cry and cry a lot, but eventually you need to find a way to laugh.
5. Your family is more important than you could ever imagine.
6. Sometimes you just need to be happy that you have an eye and not worry too much that it does not open as much as the other one does yet.
7. Sometimes life throws things at us that forces us to do something that you would never do otherwise. In my case, it's taking medicine, I never used to take it and hated the idea of it, I had to get over that and take my medicine.
8. It's okay to just let people take care of you.
9. I have a wonderful family in Acosta.
10. Never ever judge someone unless you have walked in their shoes (I learned that before, but this reinforced it).
11. Sometimes you just can't explain why something happened, just accept it and learn as much as you can from it.

Okay, that is some of what I've learned. I'm sure I'll think of some more stuff as time goes by. I'm excited to start my service and to get back into shape. I'm excited to see what other obstacles my Peace Corps experience will throw my way!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

I'm getting there

For the past 5 days I've been staying with my host family in Acosta regaining some strength and doing a basic re-group. I was originally staying in a hotel in San Jose, but this was just not a good idea. I was having some side effects from the pain medication and realized that I was not going to really get better in a hotel. My host mom is Acosta is soooo great, she has been such a blessing and has taken awesome care of me. She cooks everything from scratch and she cooks over a wood burning stove, I never thought I would like rice and beans, but I love her rice and beans. There is something to be said for taking your time and really cooking your food, it just tastes better.

Yesterday I went back to the eye doctor, I had felt for the past 3 days that there was something in my left eye (the problem eye) and was convinced that there was something wrong with it. After looking at my eye and doing a through examine the eye doctor told me that he did not think that I had anything in my eye, but that he thought I should go and talk to the neurologist and that I was experiencing Postherpetic Neuralgia. Basically shingle effects the nerve where it surfaces, in my case the nerve on the left side of my face. If the nerve is like a whole banana, after shingles it's like the banana has been peeled and is sending all kinds of messages to the brain, so even thought the shingle are gone you still feel pain and can feel it for a long time depending on how damaged the nerve is and how quickly it heals. So, when I went to the neurologist I told him that I had started to take my pain medication once a day at night instead of twice and day, this was my problem. Apparently, I need to take it twice a day and I need to take it twice a day for a really long time. I wanted so badly for this to be over and to just be better, but that's not how it works. Potentially this could last anywhere from a few weeks to 9 months, it all depends on many factors. Now that I know, I will be taking my medication as prescribed, opps.

For those of you who pray, I would really appreciate a lot of prayer for healing. I really don't want to have to take this medication for the next 3 months and sooooo believe in the healing power of God, so please pray with me for healing!!!!!

I'll be heading back to La Palma on Thursday, I'm excited to get back and find my normal, I hadn't been there long enough to have a normal, but I hope to get one soon! The past 2 weeks have been difficult, but there have been a lot of good things that have come from it, for example, I've been able to talk daily or twice daily with my parents. I've been able to talk to my brother and sister in law a bunch and see my little nephew via skype and hear him say his new words and jump and play. I've been able to talk a ton with John. I've been able to watch some american tv (it's awesome!) and I've been able to spend time in Acosta, I love Acosta.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A quick update on Laura...

Last night I left the hospital around 9pm and headed to my hotel. It was nice to have the IVs out of my arms, but extremely overwhelming to try and keep track of all the medicines and times and eye drops and gels and washes, etc. At least I'm done with one of the medications tomorrow. I have some follow ups with the doctors on Thursday and Friday and then I'm going to try and figure out something else to do, the hotel thing is not the best solution for me at this point. Today I was able to see a fellow Tico 19er Leah and she arrived at the perfect time. It was so great to spend a couple of hours with a friend and to feel somewhat normal for a while. Tomorrow I will meet up with a former roommate from my Beaver Creek days and spend some time with her, that should be exciting. All in all, I'm just trying to get a grasp on what just happened and how I feel about it, I'm definitely missing my family and friends in Colorado a ton and am going to need some serious time to feel normal again. I think this is the longest period of time that I've been sick and it's definitely my first time in a hospital as anything other than a visitor. I think I like the visitor role better. Ok, well, more updates to come, I hope that come Saturday I am no longer in the hotel, where I will be I'm not sure, but I think somewhere other than the hotel would be best.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Update on the Laura

Okay, well, I wanted my next blog entry to be all about the awesome time I had with John last week. It was awesome, we went to the USA vs. CR game and it was great, we drove to La Palma and stopped along the way at the beaches along the Domincal highway. We were all over the Osa Peninsula and I think we both feel like we really know the peninsula, though of course there is always more to know. We spent a ton of time at the beach and a lot of time with my host family. They loved John and he was able to help my host mom with some adjustments that were a great relief for her after she had a little accident that left her with a really sore neck. It was great to watch her and how much she loved him, when she served him gallo pinto she would ask me "has he ever eaten this before? Does he like it?" It was so much fun to translate and also to watch as John learned new words and increased his ability to communicate as he already knew a little bit of Spanish. I think somehow people who speak less Spanish are able to endear themselves faster to a family because everyone fells such a sense of care for that person. You really are dependent on people when you don't speak the language and they know it and it's a beautiful exchange. So John left me on Monday morning really early. I was really sad to say goodbye and you can't imagine how much I miss him.

Okay, so now the update...

On Saturday night I think around 5 or 6 I was feeling pretty tired and decided that I needed to go and lay down for a while. As I was laying in my bed I felt what I thought was a spider bite on my left eyebrow. It really hurt and I slapped at my eyebrow to kill the bug and drug it toward my hair line near my temple. The bite was really bothering me so I decided to just get up and go and hang out with the family and John, though the bite was seriously annoying me.

The next day I woke up and my left eye was a little swollen, but not too bad, I just thought I was having an allergic reaction to said bite so I took a benadrly and called it good.

On Monday after saying goodbye to John I noticed that my eye was more swollen so I decided to call the Peace Corps medical office to see what they thought I should do. They thought what I thought, that it was an allergic reaction to the bite and that I should step up my benadryl intake (I had only taken one on Sunday). So I did. That night the eye had gotten worse and before bed I called the PC doctor to see if it was okay for me to go to the doctor the next day. She said that would be just fine and we decided that rather than traveling 8 hours to San Jose, it would be better to travel 1 hour to Jimenez (the nearest bigger town).

On Tuesday, I went to Jimenez and my confidence was not super inspired by the clinic. In fact, as I was standing in one of the lines I just couldn't keep the tears from falling from eyes. I was moved from line to line, eventually I got to see the doctor and he said that it was an allergic reaction to the bite and that it was infected so he prescribed me some antibiotics and some anti-allergy and some pain stuff and some other stuff... Anyway, I was happy to have some stuff to take, but on the other hand something was telling me that I was not having an allergic reaction, if I were the benedryl would have at least helped a little.

On Wednesday, I woke up and now the swelling was under my eye and to my nose and my eye was swollen shut. No bueno. I called the Peace Corps doctor and she gave me the go ahead to take the bus to San Jose. I had to take the 10:00 since there are only 2 busses and that's the last one. So I packed some dirty cloths (after my week with John everything was dirty) thinking I would be staying in a hotel and could go to a laundry mat or something and thank God I packed up my laptop and jumped on the bus. I was not a fun ride. I think the bus ride is the first time that I felt as bad as I looked (pics to come eventually, but probably not until I look normal). I arrived in San Jose around 6:30pm and went to the emergency room. The bus driver was super nice and stopped the bus early to let me off right in front of the hospital and wished me luck with my eye.

Once I was checked in and saw the doctor she looked right at me and said (all of this is in Spanish by the way) you have herpes zoster. I was like, no no no, not herpes, a bug bit me and she was like no way, this is herpes zoster, have you ever had the chicken pox and I said yes and she said, you have herpes zoster. After taking some samples of the sores and taking some blood it was official, I have shingles aka herpes zoster. The doctor said that she wanted admit me and I said okay and I've been in the hospital for the past few days and will be here for the next few.

Wow, who knew. The doctors and myself are quite perplexed as to how this happened. It's very rare in somebody my age and it's very rare in somebody who is healthy. This is my first hospital stay and I've got to say, I love this hospital. It is super nice, I have american TV which has been a real comfort, I have been able to watch all of my favorite shows and I have wifi and a warm shower, this place is great! I love Clinica Biblica!!!!

So, that's the update. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm making good progress, the swelling has gone down a lot and I'm starting to be able to open my eye without a lot of effort. I need to keep checking in with the eye doctor to make sure my vision is okay, but so far it looks good. Who know, shingles! Of all things. Well, I guess if you're going to have to go to the hospital, it may as well be a hospital in Costa Rica and you may as well do the whole thing is Spanish, it would be way to easy in english...