Little did I know an innocent Thursday afternoon would turn in to a whirl-wind of craziness and pain. I was sitting with my counterpart Esther discussing how best to prepare for World AIDS Day next month, when it hit me. I began to sweat profusely, felt light headed and dizzy, and was suddenly gripped with pain through-out my abdomen to the point of vomiting. Thinking that it was likely food poisoning from the yogurt I had eaten earlier that day, I called medical to see what I should do.
Thinking the same, my PCMO had me lie down and try to calm the vasovagal response that my body was having. When my body’s response to the shock did not dissipate she had me press on different parts of my abdomen, when the right side yielded more pain, she worried this was something more and told me to get to the hospital in Nakuru, my nearest larger town.
The ride there was beyond the scope of being quick and easy. It had just finished a near 5-6 hour perfuse period of rain, therefore the 10km dirt road from Ngorika to the main tarmac was a nightmarish battle through thick mud and water for the little Honda hatchback that carried me to my doom.
After a terrifying 2 hour (in normal conditions would have been 30 mins) trip to a tiny private hospital, I proceeded to wait another spanse of time to be seen by a doctor. Following more pushing around on my stomach and stiffling a desire to slap the doctor for pushing on the same inflamed spot eight times, they had to call a radiologist to come in to perform an ultrasound. Any hope of blood-work was for naught, due to the lack the hospital had of a laboratory.
Swelling, they told me. An emanate and sure sign of appendicitis.
I would have to spend the night in this tiny hospital until they could air-flight me to Nairobi and the seeming inevitability of surgery. I spent the next nine hours trying to rest, while nurses came to check on me every hour to make sure I had not worsened, while the thoughts of surgery in a foreign land swam through my brain…
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