Tuesday 18 March 2008

16th March 08

Date: 16th March 08
Location: Big Millys, Ghana
Weather: Humid and hot 35°c
Status: Ben – very under the weather, waiting around, but being cared for!! Colonel – Oiled and lubed but electrics giving problems

Awaiting THE phone call from Owen on Monday which will give me a final answer on how exactly the next step of Afritrex will go and where and when I leave here.

Current mindset is that its now too late to drive south with the ever present problems of the forthcoming rains but if Owen says yes and gets out here by the end of the week then I’d love to give it a go and may consider it still.

Heard from Silvia when I’d collected the car from the garage as she’d been admitted to hospital in Kumasi, some 250kms/9hrs drive away, as she was vomiting uncontrollably. The doctors didn’t know exactly what was wrong so kept her in overnight as a precaution, but that in an African hospital can sometimes make you worse. Her reports of 10 people to a room, sick over the floors, full toilets and a three hour queue for the pharmacy rang true with my experiences in SA and so we decided to get her on a bus back down here as quickly as possible to recover by the coast.

As I waited for her to arrive it was time to get some more training done and headed off for my usual beach run, but this time I started to experience a dull pain under my RH ribs which got progressively worse. Later in the evening Silvia arrived feeling terrible from the bus ride down and headed straight to bed, and as I was now having hot and cold flushes did the same.

What a terrible night, every 5mins I changed from sweating profusely, to shivering violently and knew something was wrong. Wendy, the owner of the camp knew immediately I was suffering from the early stages of Malaria, as she’d had it 30 times in her stay in Ghana so she headed to the medicine cabinet and brought me the necessaries and some water.

4 Malarone and 2 Paracetamol started to bring me back to life and stopped the fainting feeling, with the same again 8hrs later and now as I write this sat in the hammock feel almost human again…luckily! Off for lunch now to try and get some goodness back in the system asap.


End of day location: Big Milly’s, Ghana
Distance covered: 0kms…..AGAIN!!!! ARGGHHHHHHHH

1 comment:

tropical maddness said...

BEN!!!! This is Pamela, or Pammy as only u have premission to call me. I'm back home, happy to be with my love, Will but missing you guys and our Kokrobite nights. Glad to hear all seems well and that Owen is finally coming through for you. As promised I am hard at work spreading "swaffle" and "turkey slap" around northern California. I miss you and Luke lots, you guys were too much fun. Please email me soon!!!
Love,
Pam