The Last Zing of Scotland

Time flies when you're having fun. But it’s freakin’ glacial when you have the most horrific, cranium-splitting migraine of your entire life. Last Saturday, I started feeling this sharp pain behind my right eye. Advil Liqui-gels didn't help, or Tylenol with codeine. Then the pain traveled all over my face...left eye, sinuses, forehead, backhead, cheeks......my poor noggin was hurtin' for certain, and I couldn't get any relief.

I should have known it was a migraine from the get-go, what with all the pent-up stress,
long hours, lousy diet and frustration of putting the workshop together. But for about a New York minute, I thought I had malaria. My new “brother from another mother,” a British photojournalist named Euan, got me started on THAT whole line of thinking. I call Euan my
new brother because we clicked like pals immediately. He was impressed that I figured out
he was of Scottish descent (Hel-LO??? Dude, the name “Euan” was, like, a TOTAL giveaway.) I’m impressed by his pluck. Euan has to be the pluckiest young freelancer I've ever met. I mean, he'll hitch a ride on the back of a banana truck headed to the Sudan in a heartbeat. He'll slog through swamps, stand on the roof of cars, wander around an IDP camp on his own....he's a daring chap, with a literal twinkle in his eyes and a disarming grin. And plus, his “veddy British” accent is way cool.

I also consider Euan my new sibling because, as I once told him, he's like the pesky younger brother I never had. (I mean that in the nicest possible way.) He had known me for about 3 weeks when he started calling me "mouthy." He likes to talk about the grossest stuff possible while you're trying to eat. He's been bragging lately about leaving soon, to spend a month in the south of France, with maybe a side-trip to Barcelona, while I'm stuck here learning to love the myriad ways to cook goat meat. I about had to slap him to make him shut up. And HE'S the reason I thought I had malaria, 'cause he kept yammering on about it.

Anyway, after checking out malaria symptoms online, I was convinced I was a goner. First, there was the throbbing headache. Then the malaise...never mind that I was malnourished and exhausted…..I suspected malaria. Then there was the nausea...I've had nausea associated with migraines for YEARS, but just because I'm in Gulu, I immediately concluded I was, like, major-ly malarial.

So I hauled my pounding pate over to Gulu Independent Hospital. Never fear--it was not the Dickensian horror of consumption, virulent bacteria, and profound human suffering I had braced myself for. There were no severed, maggot-infested limbs lying along the corridor, no rivulets of infected blood winding across the halls. There were no excruciating moans, no putrid smells, or glassy-eyed, machete wielding “surgeons” looming in darkened doorways. There were, however, a bunch of babies and toddlers. Cute as bugs, the lot of them. I guess babies are the only real growth market for hospitals around here.....babies and HIV.

Anyway, it was a clean, if sparse environment, with nurses wearing old-fashioned British uniforms, all starchy and prim. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorite Audrey Hepburn movies, “A Nun’s Story.” That’s where our intrepid, doe-eyed waif decides to take the veil, leave her family in Belgium and nurse the natives down in the Congo. If I recall, she caught Yellow Fever and almost died in that flick. And those friggin’ vows kept her from getting nailed by a totally handsome young Peter Finch, which pisses me off every time I think about it. And if THAT wasn’t bad enough, another hapless nun got her head bashed in by some tormented villager, who thought the senseless murder would help cure one of his relative’s disease.

Dammit, I don’t like that stinkin’ movie, after all!

Never mind. It turns out I only spent about an hour at Gulu Independent. That’s less time than I've spent waiting to see a doctor at my Kaiser-Permanente health clinic in DC. They weighed me, took my blood pressure (nice and low), gave me a finger prick and a blood test to confirm that I DIDN'T have malaria, and then a doctor sent me on my way. He said they didn't have any migraine drugs, but he prescribed some codeine and an anti-nausea medication. Then I went home and watched a Colombo DVD until the pain lessened and I drifted off to sleep.

The next day, I felt totally fine. But that night, I got a text message from Euan saying, "Pop along to the Bomah, if you aren't out with malaria." No, "Hi, I just got back into town, how are you feeling? Hope you're okay." Just a "Come and have some tilapia if you aren't emitting a raspy, wrenching death rattle from the last throes of some insidious tropical disease.” Just what you'd expect from the pesky little brother you'd want to keep punching in the arm until he passed out from the pain.

Sadly, Euan is taller than me, and 17 years younger, and would probably return a few of those punches until I passed out first. So I'll settle for being grateful I don't have a potentially fatal ailment. That means I can get started working on the next workshop. WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

But at least this time, I'm ready for the inevitable eye-popping migraine that's sure to come.