A very Scooby Doo health update

Well, its been a rough-and-tumble couple of weeks. I think the best way to describe it would be by comparing it to a typical episode of Scooby Doo. “Really, TJ? That's how your gonna describe it?” Oh yes. Yes I am.

If you're unfamiliar with the general plot progression of a typical episode of Scooby Doo I'm sure you can zip on to youtube and find a million of them right now. Here's how it works. Every episode starts out with the gang going somewhere when the Mystery Machine breaks down and they get stranded at [an abandoned mill]. At first the gang is distressed, but relieved to be somewhere that has other people. That is usually when the locals come and and say something like, “It's be best to get as far away from here as possible. Don't you know about [the swamp thing]? Its been terrorizing the town for weeks.

Fred eventually says something like, “Hey gang, lets get to the bottom of this.” And Shaggy and Scooby make some remark about going to regret that decision. Eventually the gang has a run in with whatever spooky thing is in question and they catch [old man Smithers, the ex-foreman]?! Velma explains why it was obviously this person, Shag and Scoob high five that they can go back to eating cheeseburgers, and Daphne... come to think of it, what did Daphne ever bring to the table? Fred at least drove (and wore ascots).

Its right about then that you start saying to yourself, “There's no way [old man Smithers] really did it. I can't prove it, but if the case is really shut what are we going to do for the next 25 minutes that this episode is on? It can't be 5 minutes of crime fighting and 25 minutes of Shaggy and Scooby eating cheeseburgers, can it? They haven't even had their signature chase down a halfway of doors yet. They obviously didn't catch the right guy and had better get back to work.”

Before you know it, the gang goes back to enjoying their time at [the abandoned mill] only to discover that [the swamp thing] still exists and they had better catch it for sure. Hilarity ensues, Velma loses here glasses and Scooby's [swamp thing trap] ends up catching the thing that they find out that it wasn't really [old man Smithers] after all. It was really [the real estate mogul that wanted to turn the mill into a haunted house].

As an adult watching the show with your kids (or by yourself, that's cool too) three things are probably running through your head. The first is utter disbelief that Casey Kasem is really the voice of Shaggy. And the second thing is that how could your kid think for one second the first guy they caught was really the one that did it because, hey, 25 minutes of eating cheeseburgers. The third is why do they always think they'll have gotten away if not for these meddling kids. What is it these kids do that real police are not capable of?

I'm guessing that you are nowhere close to putting the dots together and mainly just wondering why I spent the last 500+ words shoddily describing every Scooby Doo episode ever. Well, it helps describe the progression of my health the last several weeks. At least in my mind it makes great sense, but that could be a result of the toll the last two weeks (or 25 years) have taken on me.

It was great that Christina got sick first. Not for her obviously, but for me. I thought. Maybe. Sure, she spent three days in the hospital recuperating, but I got into the clinic and out in less than three hours with the same diagnosis knowing what I was expecting. I caught [the swamp thing] in the first five minutes of the episode and was ready to get out of dodge and eat cheeseburgers for 25 minutes. Figuratively. Very figuratively.

Getting diagnosed and put on antibiotics in the wee hours of Sunday/Monday kept me fine till maybe Thursday. Thats when I started feeling markedly worse. By late Saturday I was in a bit of pain and having massive diarrhea again and a bit of a fever so I had friend take me down to the clinic to get more blood work down. (Medical services here are just kind of ala cart. You walk in and ask, “Give a blood test” and then they do it. You also sometimes have to interpret the results yourself.)

Having determined that the infection was way down and my white blood cell count was normal, I though it would be just a phase of the recover. One of my friends that took me to the hospital, his wife had the same thing last month and it took her over 3 weeks to beat this thing. Christina on the other hand was looking much better after only a week and seemed normal, so I was wondering where I, a healthy, manly young man, would fit in.

Where I would fit in was, after spending an hour or two on Skype Sunday night telling people how well I was doing, abruptly left those conversations and than collapsed with severe dehydration brought on by four days of intense diarrhea. I am not joking when I say it was the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life as my entire body cramped and spasmed uncontrollably until making it to the hospital (what felt like) hours later until they gave me an I.V. and a couple injections in my butt and tried to control my fever of 103deg.

This would be [the swamp thing] roaring back to life after thinking I had captured [old man Smithers] or whatever his name is. After a week of antibiotics and medicine and thinking it was just a gnarly case of paratyphoid, it turned into a GNARLY case of paratyphoid. To know how bad paratyphoid is, just think A) typhoid! That doesn't sound very good, does it. And the only word that shows up more than typhoid on it's own wikipedia page is salmonella, so B) salmonella! The only time I ever hear about salmonella in the States is when somebody gets like a $1M settlement from Taco Bell for getting sick, overlooking the fundamental flaw that the “victim” was willing to eat at Taco Bell in the first place.

(Editors note: Too bad there was no way to get the typhoid and salmonella to work against each other. I was reading a couple of months back about an experimental trial in which the “doctor” used HIV to attack and cure a patient's leukemia. Too bad that sounds REDICULOUS. Imagine hearing this from your doctor: “Yeah, so it appears you have breast cancer, but we're gonna give you some Ebola and that's gonna clear it right up by morning. Maybe...”)

So how is TJ now? Worlds better. I spent three days in the hospital getting constant I.V. bags and antibiotics directly pumped into me. Because, you know, severe diarrhea and dehydration for four days! And three days in a Mozambican clinic was quite enough for me, I'll tell you that. I came home a week ago Tuesday and have been resting up and getting my strength and weight back little by little each day. To give you an idea what the dehydration had suddenly done to me, I checked into the hospital the same weight I entered high school in. Granted, I entered high school 5'9” and fat, but now I'm 6'3” and handsome (take my word for it). That just ain't right.

The takeaway from the story is that, aside from being at the sickest point of my life, I was well taken care of. When people get sick here we always buddy them up because things can turn really bad in a heartbeat, so the whole week before (and after) my hospital visit there were people around helping me and checking in on my and minding me., and its great how when people are really down the kids all pitch in to help. The second takeaway from the story is that I've got some great friends here that several times dropped everything in the middle of the night to drive me to the hospital, (because Victor was in Zimbabwe). The third takeaway is that there is really a great community here that we've built up. Both weeks I was in bed sick there was at least a daily visit from a neighbor, a pastor, friends from the barrio, the kids' friends from school, that were all coming by to visit and pray with me and for me and offer to help out around the house. God's grace was very evident these last couple weeks and its very plain to see there there's lots of people here that really care about me.

So whats next? Barring any relapse, I need to be getting my strength back. I'm eating well and just being patient as my body is recuperating. I've been back home for 8 days now and Monday I managed to walk out the the market for the first time. Today, I went around the city doing some grocery shopping. It left me pretty tired though and I've just spent the rest of the day lying around (and thinking about Scooby Doo). I could still use prayers that I can get back to full speed, because I still feel only around 50% energy wise.