Life on Another Planet

Last Wednesday I received a phone call that sucked the air right out of me. I was in David when my dad informed me that my grandma, my mom’s mom, had suffered a stroke and was not expected to live. The news knocked me to the ground and sadness and homesickness flooded my eyes and pounded in my head. I paced furiously throughout the city for the next few hours. When I finally had a chance to hear my mom’s voice, I knew that I had to get home. Soon.

During the next couple days, I traveled to retrieve my passport from my site, acquired Peace Corps permission to leave the country, and booked a flight. Friday morning I crossed the Costa Rican border for San José for a flight back to Ohio. The long and lonely pilgrimage terminated in the heartland, on my parents’ farm, in the arms of my mother. The next day I went to the hospital with my mom to say my first set of goodbyes to my dying grandmother.

Throughout my week back home I tried to ease the shock and pain in familiar activities, but the dizzying grief and the last half-year in Panama had diminished their familiarity. My skin dried up and flaked with the lack of humidity in the air; the closed up house felt like a sealed box, so I tried opening all the windows; waking up thinking and speaking in Spanish just wouldn’t due. And then there was grocery shopping. Although I had been looking forward to the possibility of indulgence, I was rendered completely useless in U.S. grocery stores. I walked down aisle after aisle (freezing my tushy off) only to arrive with an empty basket to the registers. Overwhelmed with the so many options, not being confined to a Peace Corps budget, and having access to refrigeration at home was just too much. I couldn’t decide what, if anything, to purchase. And then there were the pains of guilt. My parents’ fridge and cupboards were all ready full of food; did we really need more?

So when all else failed I sought comfort in the kitchen. I cleaned and baked: zucchini bread, pear-stuffed pork chops, apple dumplings, chocolate chip cookies, and pear crisp. And then I made grape jam from the grapes that were beginning to fall from the vine outside. And just when I was starting to feel at home again, it was time to say goodbyes. My time at home had expired. I would miss both Grandma’s passing away and the homecoming of my Philadelphia-dwelling sister. Saturday with a very heavy heart (and a heavy bag, full of grape jam) I boarded the first of two planes that would carry me back to Costa Rica, and yesterday I re-crossed the border to return to Panama.

Pictures of the heartland and my journey back…

sunset over the tattered (from Hurricane Ike) corn

the farm

cattails

Mom. she just read Omnivore´s Delima, so I had her pose with the infamous monoculture

bull thistle

the pregnant moos

clouds over Columbus, Ohio

somewhere south of Cuba

Laguna de Arenal, Costa Rica

Bowel-Splitting Bloating

Disclaimer: as the title would suggest, this blog entry is a bit graphic and perhaps way more than you’d ever want to know about me, so if you have a weak stomach or would ever like to think of me professionally or romantically again, please stop reading now…

The uncomfortable bloated balloon feeling was back and worse than ever. The morning’s diarrhea led to a day of painstakingly monitored food consumption, but to no avail. Bowel-splitting bloating was once again ravaging my colon. The acid tasting burps were frequent and I could feel more trouble brewing. The pain was incredible. Five more appendicitis would be preferable to this. I tried laying down, but I felt something rising in my esophagus. I raced to the toilet just in time to vomit… air. Terrible stomach gas really. Like dry heaving, but more painful and decidedly worse tasting. I laid down again, pushing my abs inward to force out more air. Would my intestines really rupture from this pressure? What is the number for 911 in Panama? Oh no, more dry heaves. I race back to the toilet and this time vomit spews out, but with such force it splashes back in my face, in my hair. Eventually my stomach has nothing left to offer up. My whole body aches, I smell of vomit, and I wish for sleep. I take off my splattered tshirt, wad it up, lay down on cool concrete, and continue trying to force the gas out of my abdomen. Sleep comes eventually, and in a couple hours the sun rises.

More burps. And then things start moving in my colon. I race around hunting for a bag. The laboratory will be open today, and I can get tested for parasites. I find a bag, and figure out how to maneuver myself before it’s too late. Mission accomplished. I double bag for good measure, and walk down to the lab.

— Good morning. How can I assist you?
— Good morning. Uh, I’ve been having digestive problems recently.
— Would you like to give a sample of… uh…err… um…(recovering)… for parasites?
— Yes.
— Did you, uh, bring a sample?
I reach into my bag. My current situation has made me surprisingly frank and, well, shameless.
— Yes. It is a couple hours old. Is that okay?
— Yes.
I feel the eyes of the other man in the reception on me. I hand over my bag.
— It should be ready in an hour.
— Thank you.

Two hours later I return. It is Panama, so naturally all wait times need be doubled. I arrive and am told to wait. After 15 minutes, I am handed my lab test results: “Entamoeba histolytica (Q).” I have amoebas. Again. I take my bit of good fortune down the pharmacy, where I am given twice as many drugs as last time (per PC doctor’s orders), and spend the rest of the day how I would imagine an amoeba passing its time in my colon (minus the parasitic food consumption part): being blob-like and releasing enormous quantities of gas.

I know I an generally a pretty happy person and a particularly jolly drunk, but I am evidently a nasty mean sick person. Over a day into treatment I am still have eaten next to nothing and my intestines are still getting mad when I try to do so, so I call up the Peace Corps doctor to ask if that is okay and to see if force feeding myself oatmeal would be a good next step.

“Janell, I know that you’ve had amoebas twice, but I need you to eat something. Go to the cafeteria there in Changuinola and eat their soup with some rice.”

The thought turns my stomach to stone.

I really want to say, “You’re the doctor, you should know what six plus weeks of parasites does to your insides. Do you know how much pain I am in? Dammit do you have any idea how much I don’t want to eat?” But I reply, “Okay.”

After a fifteen minute pep talk with myself, I am putting on my shoes. She’s the doctor, so I’ll give her a chance, but if my nose says “no” I’m going with him on this one. The soup passed my nose, but not my eyes. I could see the chicken grease floating on top. I go to the store to buy some apple juice.

That was a couple hours ago, and things are looking up. I had some yogurt (which was totally against the doc’s orders of “No dairy, that includes yogurt”), but it sounded good, and I haven’t felt or heard any angry rumbling as of yet. And I have a whole arsenal of herbal meds express mailed from Ohio. I think things are settling down, and soon I’ll graduate solid foods again, so I’ll be headed back to site tomorrow, and explain that Janell can no longer accept drinks containing untreated water. It’s a shame, but it’ll be better than round 3 with amoebas.