Illness has a new name

After a restless night's sleep, with Eleanor waking every hour, I awoke from a terrible nightmare at 8:30 am, shook Tim awake, we threw on the same clothes we were wearing the night before, and jumped into the car, just making it to the hospital for our 9:00 appointment with the pediatrician.

Getting to see the doctor is a considerable feat in and of itself. After checking in at window #1, you are sent to window #2 where you pay to see the doctor (this costs 10,000 Tsh, approximately $7.30 given today's exchange rate) and are then sent back to window #1 to return your chart to them so they can hand it to the nurses at the counter behind them who organize the list of waiting patients into some (unknown) kind of order. After seeing the doctor (which, unlike in the states, takes as long as you need to have all your questions and concerns answered- probably because (s)he is not being reimbursed for the number of patients he gets in and out the door), you are sent the the Pharmacy at window #3 where they check out what prescriptions you need, hand you a little scrap of paper on which a shilling amount is written, and send you back to window #2 where you wait in line (again), this time to pay for your prescription (each time being given a hand-written receipt), before being sent back to window #3 to pick up said prescription. All the while you are navigating through the masses of patients in the waiting room (where this all occurs...and today there were no empty seats), trying to stay cool and catch what little breeze comes through the open windows.

The doctor took one smell of Eleanor's diaper, and after hearing of Tim's symptoms (and learning of his ceasar salad meal from the afternoon before the symptoms appeared), promptly gave his diagnosis: giardia and food poisoning, for Eleanor and Tim respectively.

I must say that it's a relief to have an answer that is not "It's the weather", but it does not make having to force medicine down my daughter's throat any easier. Tim, too, is on the mend. I'm more than happy to say goodbye to our little bugs. There certainly are more important things that my family wants to get on with...like helping dad with his dissertation research.

Goodbye giardia.

Goodbye food poisoning.

Hello dissertation research.