I was in bed last night at around 9.30pm as I knew something was going on with my health. My head was light and I was heating up. It was bad enough before going to bed but it got even worse once I got into bed. It reminded me of that song by Elvis Presley - “It was a night oh oh what a night it was, it really was such a night.” I’ve an idea he was talking about something other than aching bones.
I couldn't lay still for more than a couple of minutes; my arms and thighs ached and I didn't know what to do with them. I tossed and turned for hours and finally, at 4.30am, I decided to get up to search for some medicine. I avoid illness like the plague so I have very little in the way of medicine. I do have lots of Tiger Balm, which is the cure all, in this part of the world. All this did was make me smell nicely. I rummaged around in a drawer and found a container of Advil. They were left over from a much earlier dental programme but I was desperate. They expired in 2008 but who cares! They are the capsule kind and so, in Cambodia's heat, they'd stuck together in a clump so I had to work at loosening them. I finally got two and within minutes the bone ache had disappeared. So that tells me something about expiry dates.
Among the ordinary Cambodian population, aching bones means Dengue Fever. This is caused by a daytime mosquito and there's no cure. It's commonly called "Bone Breaker" because every bone in the body aches. It lasts three weeks and, if you are a healthy person, you get over it. If you are a malnourished child from a village you bleed internally and you die.
A few years back I visited the Kantha Bopha Hospital in Siem Reap, which was started by a Swiss medical doctor. Every day thousands of people line up with their sick children, usually suffering from Dengue, Malaria or Malnutrition. Dr. Richter had a public lecture every week on the work he was doing and when I was there he talked about SARS. He said, "SARS was in every newspaper in the West, people were terrified, but only a handful of people died. At the same time, I was treating thousands of children each day with Dengue Fever and not a word of it was in the world's newspapers. That's because SARS was called a "Western" disease whereas Dengue Fever was from the East."
As soon as my joints started to ache I began to think the worst but, after taking the ancient Advil, the ache died down and I could get to sleep. I woke up when the phone rang - it was Vuth inviting me for lunch; it was 11.30am. I staggered over the road but wasn't in the mood for eating. As usual, the table was covered with food - a pork meatball soup, a beef dish with pumpkin shoots, a papaya salad with shrimp. There's no point in saying, "No thank you", because a spoonful is placed on my plate with the words, "This is good". I was also give a bottle of mother's soya drink which is made by adding a special medicinal leaf, plus a 'special' coconut. Vuth has a friend who owns a farm with 2,000 coconut trees. I didn't realise that coconuts are produced all year round. She does no work; people come to pick the coconut and a man collects the money. I also learned that the coconuts grown in Cambodian are for drinking; if people want to cook with coconut they use ones imported from Thailand and Vietnam. That's because the local coconuts are super sweet and really delicious.
After lunch I cancelled my English class, went home and crawled into bed. I finally got up at 6pm so I've missed the entire day. The world managed to go on without me so that's a relief. I pried apart a couple of the Advil tablets and I'm feeling better. I cancelled a meeting with Thornin and he said he wasn't feeling well either, so there's something going around. I left Canada before the flu shot was available but here in Cambodia it might not have made a difference anyway. Now I'm going to have a cup of tea and pretend I'm in the land of the living.
