cambodia- in sickness and in health

fish hooks, dengue fever and tequila as my savior

Let me tell you about the wildest two weeks of my entire life where I nearly died (an exaggeration? maybe). It started in Koh Rong Sanolem, a gorgeous little island in Cambodia. Shay and I arrived and spent three days in paradise. Swimming in crystal clear waters, dancing and flowing on the beach, partying every night. On the fourth day on the island, we begin our 30 minute trek the same stretch of beach we’d been frequenting all week. The sky is bright, sparkles twinkle on the sea’s surface and we run in to the vast blue. Within minutes, I step on a fish. What ensues can only be described as pure chaos. White hot, shooting, searing, all encompassing pain shoots up my foot into my leg. I quickly step off the hook, dislodging it from my foot and somehow manage to crawl out of the sea, throwing myself onto my towel and howling in pain. It was excruciating, to this day the most painful thing I’ve ever physically experienced. I’m immovable.

Shay races down the beach for help. In the 30 minute, she’s gone the pain intensifies. There are approximately 7000 nerve endings in your foot and every single one of them was screaming at me. She returns with nothing but a German man in tow. He hoists me onto his shoulders and essentially parades me up the beach, step by step across the sand to our hostel. My savior truly.

The closest thing to a doctor was a small pharmacy run by a local man with a myriad of Cambodian pharmaceuticals. My fellow travelers ply me with (what I’m told) are strong narcotics and premium grade Cambodia cannabis. After nearly 3 hours and enough drugs to sedate a baby elephant, my pain has all but disappeared.

I spend the next two days sleeping and recovering hobbling up and down the stairs. Authors note – I continue to return to the same stretch of sea again and again with no additional injuries because I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. On the final evening of recovery, while sleeping, I get a mosquito bite. Well, I get many and all on one butt cheek that was somehow exposed from the mosquito net while sleeping.

The next morning Shay and I are invited on a boat party. I’m almost too embarrassed to go due to the location of the bites, but my foot is nearly healed and I’m admittedly a party girl through and through so I’m easily convinced to go. That will be the last healthy time I experience until I heal from my sickness, approximately two weeks later.

The Sickness

The next four days are a blur, I’m floating through my life, unsure of day or night, waiting for my 103° fever to break. The bridge between sleep and waking is only broken by trips to the local pharmacy man for more mystery Cambodian medicine. Finally my fever breaks, and I’m welcomed back to the world of living with the gift of extreme nausea and fatigue. The fatigue will haunt me relentlessly for two more weeks. The nausea nearly brings me to my knees. I’m incapable of keeping anything down and once again I’m plied with illicit flower and the hope I’ll get the munchies and eat. (I do, just enough to survive, not nearly enough to thrive).

Five days later, I somehow come out the other side and I’m able to keep things in my body, but unable to carry my decrepit body more than 10 feet without needing a full on nap.

Throughout our entire month in Cambodia, I had no phone as I had lost it at a music festival in Northern Thailand, the night before our flight to Cambodia. My parents had ordered me a new one and shipped it from Colorado to the only FedEx in the whole of the country.

At this point, Shay and I have roughly 3 days to return to the mainland, retrieve my phone and leave the country before our visas expire. I’m fever free and able to eat something. Somehow we manage to pack up our backpacks and ferry to the mainland. Before being able to collapse into bed we quickly grab a tuk tuk in hurry to the FedEx, arriving 10 minutes before closing, on the last possible day, to retrieve my new phone.

With my connection to the real world restored once again we enter a restless sleep. We’re abruptly awakened with a horrible itchy rash. A quick search with Dr. Google says we could be having an allergic reaction to the many medicines we’ve been taking. Ready to crawl out of my skin from itchiness, we are whisked away to the local hospital.

A full 12 days after the initial sickness and a painless blood test later it is confirmed- we both have Dengue Fever. Similar to malaria it is carried by mosquitos. There is nothing to be done to prevent this, only pills you can take once being diagnosed. Helpful to know now, wholly unhelpful in the moment.

Shay was lucky enough to have the milder, kids version while I was unlucky enough to have them more intense, adult version. Just as luck would have it, there was nothing the doctors could do as the entire 3 stages had nearly worked their way out of our bodies naturally (or unnaturally). The next morning we were on our pre-booked flight to Southern Thailand.

Faced with an insatiable urge to scratch, I find a local Italian restaurant and so kindly beg for some olive oil to take home as it’s one of the few natural remedies I found that actually helps with the itching. After slathering my body in what I can only describe as God‘s greatest nectar and several tears (and a mental breakdown later) I throw on a dress slap, some glitter on my face and head out to the hostels bar crawl in hopes of regaining some sense of life.

After approximately five tequila shots, I awake the next day rash gone, fatigue cleared, and the knowledge that tequila really is magical medicine.