Round 5

I know, I know... I was supposed to have a bunch of updates by the end of January. You've probably learned by now that I just try to get my readers' hopes up so that I can dash them to pieces.

No, actually I have a good excuse this time. I had intestinal parasites last week. They were actually pretty mild this time around. I still kinda lost a bit of weight, but I had put some on in December, so I think I'm back to where I was for most of last year. Seems like intestinal parasites are just no match for this digestive system. That's my 5th time defeating them.

Well, I think the parasites realized this, so they brought a secret weapon this time around. On Monday of last week, I realized that I'd been feeling pretty tired for several days and maybe running a slight fever. I thought that maybe I had malaria, but I read over the symptoms, and since I hadn't experienced chills at all, I figured it was just dehydration with a side of hypochondria. But I decided to get tested anyway. Good thing too. Turns out I had three strains of malaria in my body. I think that's a pretty good reason for my decreased productivity.

Well, I started taking my malaria meds. I decided that this meant I would be at full strength, so I went straight back to the office. Nothing too exciting until the next day when I felt some abdominal discomfort. It became sharper as I walked home, but I just wrote it off as the parasites. Then I realized that the region that hurt had the distinct possibility of being my liver. And malaria complications can arise in the liver. So after an anxious night, I sought some medical advice and found out that abdominal discomfort can be a side effect of the meds. Well, I wound up missing work that day and the next. I could barely eat food (just a little plain rice) and I didn't even leave the house. The worst part was that I couldn't even look at books or anything else (including the blog) so time was crawling.

Fortunately, after I finished the meds, the pain subsided. I got retested for malaria and it came back negative. Now I'm putting in long days at the office to make up for everything I missed while I was down for the count. Once I'm less behind, I'll have more up here.