You’ve got a friend IN me

I’ve been asking myself the last few days “When’s the point where I need to see a doctor?” That point was this morning. I’ve had a horrifically bad tummy for 12 days now, the first 4 or so days we assume was from a tummy bug that I had gotten due to the new bacteria I was being surrounded with and my immune system isn’t brilliant. The rest of the time, my whole condition just seemed to be getting worse. I couldn’t keep any food in me, I had the worst headaches, I was feeling sick half the time, was always on my squat toilet and had the worst stomach cramps in the world.

Now, i’ve been to hospital a few times on the basis of stomach pain and cramps, but nothing was as bad as this morning. I woke up in incredible pain (luckily it was my day off), I had a really bad accident (not going into detail about that one😂) but it was horrific. I was jumping from the bed, to the toilet, and back again. The cramps were so painful, I couldn't lie down, sit up or stand, everything was painful. I had lost all energy and struggled to even get up the stairs.

Hannah and Will (the other Uk’s I share a house with) have also had bad stomaches for a week now. So, we all took a trip to the clinic together.

The first thing I had was an ultrasound. The doctor spoke perfect English and even had a little laugh with us. The ultrasound came back all good, no stones or cysts (Thank god).

Will and I both had blood tests which tested for around 8 diseases and problems. At this point, we were all a bit worried they would find nothing, call it an upset stomach and tell us to drink more water. Normally I wouldn’t want something wrong with me, but this had gone on too long and I wanted an almost instant fix. However, the blood teats all came back ok... except one.

So, it turns out that we actually have a parasite in our bodies, a 35cm worm to be particular. This worm has been living in our intestines for god knows how long so when we‘ve been eating, we‘ve actually been feeding this worm so that it multiplies and breeds inside us.

This type of worm is caused by human feces. If someone with the paracite, poos near fruit or veg, the worm will make its way into the food. If our host family doesn’t cook or wash the food properly, the paracite lives inside of it, we eat it or eat the eggs, and thus the worm can start it’s new life cycle.

After a little wait, we finally got our goody bags of medication. I still felt sick to my stomach that something was alive and breeding inside my intestines but was also happy that we were finally going to get better as I didn’t think I could carry on like this for the next 8 weeks.

We have a lot of medication to take over the course of the next two weeks. Some we have to take as soon as we‘ve eaten and some we have to take at regular time periods in the day. Will has two types of insects inside him so he has one more medication.

As I’m writing this, the mother worm and her babies are still moving around inside me, probably wondering why I haven’t eaten dinner tonight and why I haven’t fed them. However, these 4 pills we have to take at the same time tonight; their job is to actually kill the worms overnight so that we can get rid of them tomorrow (I’m assuming it breaks them up into little bits too)! I’ve had to go the whole afternoon, knowing that they were alive in me and feeding off everything I was eating (which was a BBQ). This mostly put me off the BBQ.

I thought this was a story worth telling and that In the next few posts I’ll start feeling better and enjoying my time properly.

Off to the market tomorrow on the hunt for some ketchup! Have a great weekend, hopefully this doesn’t haunt your dreams!