Where The Sidewalk Ends: I went to the Caribbean and all I brought back was the lousy dengue virus....

The last time I posted I was looking forward to a long 3 day weekend and a trip up to Lago de Yojoa. Thanks to the Honduran President, though, that was changed. Unexpectedly, on the Tuesday before that weekend, the President decided to extend the holiday into a 5 day weekend! So instead of having only Monday off, we got Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off! I think I have a new favorite person in Honduras--President Juan Orlando! Not wanting to waste such a blessed time off, some people found a GREAT deal on Groupon for a 3 night, all inclusive stay at a resort on Roatan Island, so with just 3 days to spare before we left, many of us changed our plans and were jumping with joy over the thought of being in the Caribbean in a matter of 3 days! After that, it was slightly hard to make it through the rest of the school week, as we were all just ready to be done and on vacation time!

Friday, Children's Day, was absolute chaos. There was no controlling those kids on that day, but we did have a fun time overall. The seniors came into our class and did some facepainting and a small clown show, and they put on a big presentation for all of the elementary grades with dancing and skits. My students also played soccer games against students from another nearby school. My fifth grade boys were beat horribly, but the girls lost in a shoot out. It was killing me to watch and not play! However, I used the time to teach the game of Ninja to another group of non-soccer inclined students, and watching them play has been amusing. We ended our day with pizza and then I sent them home with a huge sigh of relief that none of them had died or killed me in the course of that crazy half day. I spent the second half of my day catching up on grading and getting ready to leave for vacation!

On Saturday, we had a loooooong travel day. We got up at 3:30, caught a 4:30 am bus from Gracias to San Pedro Sula. When we arrived in San Pedro around 10, we were able to catch a second bus almost right away to La Ceiba. Unfortunately, our group got split and we left 2 of the teachers behind to wait for the later bus. After realizing we were leaving them, the Honduran girl sitting next to me leaned out the window and shouted something about two Gringos being in the terminal. That didn't really phase the bus company. We had another 4-5 hour bus ride from San Pedro to La Ceiba, and when we arrived in Ceiba it was around 1:30 ish. From the bus station, we took a taxi to the ferry station, where we waited 3 hours for the the last ferry to Roatan. We also met up with all the La Union teachers here, and our group was up to 17 people! Upon boarding the ferry, we were handed barf bags and knew it would be an interesting ride. Turns out the ferry is aptly nicknamed the Vomit Comet! We had a rolling and rocking 2 ish hour ride on the ferry, and the majority of the teachers got sick. I didn't, fortunately, but that was because I slept through the majority of that ride. Once on solid ground, we got our luggage, met our drivers from the resort, and were driven to our personal paradise for the next 3 nights!

Vacationing there was wonderful--exactly what we all needed. While we were there, we ate and drank lots of yummy food and drinks (I'm still dreaming about their delicious pina coladas), slept a lot, swam in the sea and the pool, read, sunbathed, and went snorkeling. Snorkeling was definitely a highlight of the trip. We were picked up from the dock and brought out to a shipwreck on the reef first. With very little instruction, we were geared up and put out to sea. I got in and just started swimming, but for those of you who know me well you know that although I like water, I'm not the most comfortable person in it. Jumping in and swimming out right away was a mistake for me. I immediately didn't feel comfortable--I was in open water, without a life jacket, getting jostled by waves, felt like I couldn't breathe, and had water seeping in my goggles into my eyes and nose. I quickly started hyperventilating. Fortunately for me, one of my fellow teachers noticed me panicking and took care of me. She helped get me back to the boat. Waiting at the boat I felt really frustrated and depressed as I thought I would be the one person unable to snorkel because I was too "chicken." However, after sitting and relaxing for a while, I put on a life jacket, tried a different pair of goggles, and was able to go out and snorkel. Although I never felt totally comfortable, and when the water got choppier at times I could feel the panic start to rise again, I was able to push through it, slow my breathing, and continue to enjoy the amazing underwater scenery. And o my goodness was it awesome! The coral and the fish were so interesting and beautiful; it was like a whole different world underwater. I didn't see anything spectacular like an eagle ray or a shark or dolphin, but what I did see was still spectacular in its own right and testimony of our awesome, creative God. I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat!

The best part of vacation was feeling human again. I didn't need to sit and do grading and lesson planning all of the time, I could just sit and think, or read and enjoy a new book, or take a walk down the beach and talk to the guy catching fish and preparing his dinner on the shore. It was a wonderful gift and I am so thankful for it.

After being spoiled at the resort, we had to leave on Tuesday for a long travel day home again. This time, our group got split after taking the ferry to Ceiba, and we ended up taking two different buses to San Pedro. Although frustrating at first, it was very providential because the other group made it to San Pedro in time to catch the last bus to Gracias, and they were able to persuade the drivers to wait about fifteen minutes for my group to come in, so that we didn't need to spend the night in San Pedro and catch a morning bus! The bus from San Pedro to Gracias on Tuesday afternoon was the most amusing, tightly packed bus I have ever been on. We started off good, with plenty of space, but soon it turned into a tetris game as the drivers tried to pack on as many people as possible. At one point, our bus with the capacity to seat 23, had 46 people jammed into it. We all got quite comfortable with random strangers sitting next to (practically on top of) us.

We made it home sweet home by 8 pm on Tuesday, and then had Wednesday free yet as well to be able to try to get back in work mode. On Thursday, we were back at school bright and early to begin again. I had a pretty good morning with my class, but around lunch time is when things went downhill. I was feeling perfectly fine all morning, but there was a sudden switch at lunch. I very suddenly went from feeling well to feeling very bad. Something was wrong and I could tell it immediately. By the end of the day (and Thursdays are my long days I teach the entire afternoon and end the day with seventh grade, which is never pleasant), I had a fever (somewhere over 100) and every muscle and joint in my body hurt. I barely made it through the afternoon and ended the day crying in the office after school while people took my temperature and were nice to me. On Thursdays, we stay late for tutorias, so I just sat in my classroom with my head on my desk and waited and tried to sleep. When we got home, I went right to bed, and slept through most of the night to Friday morning. Friday I felt better, I didn't have much of a fever and beyond feeling tired I was good to go to school, so I did. I taught the full day and went to a party in the evening. By the end of the night, I was really tired but figured that was normal and I could sleep in on Saturday morning. On Saturday, I slept until about 9 am, woke up, and was so tired I could barely move. I managed to get up, have a small breakfast, take a shower, and then fall back in bed exhausted 1 1/2 hours after waking up. I then slept until about 1:30, and when I woke up again I knew I needed lunch so I made lunch for myself, which just about killed me. It was nearly impossible to stand up for any amount of time, much less cook, and by the time I had finished lunch I was dying again, so I went back to sleep at 2:30. And then I slept until my roommates woke me up around 6:30. I dragged myself out of bed, had a quick and easy dinner, watched a movie with them, and then went back to bed. All in all, I was awake only about 5-6 hours total on Saturday.

Sunday I stayed home and slept in again. Getting up and moving around was easier than the day before, but every movement still took way more energy than it should have. I did a lot of nothing that day, but by the afternoon I felt a lot better. On Monday, my roommates forced me to stay home from school, and again in the morning I felt a lot better but still didn't have much energy at all, so I finally took myself off to the doctor at 3:30 Monday afternoon, where I met another teacher who could translate for me. After talking to the doctor briefly about my symptoms, we were off to the lab to get a blood test. My results came back quickly and we went back to the doctor with them. According to the doctor, a number having to do with my immune defense (not my white blood cell count) was down to 3,900, when it should have been between 5 and 10 thousand. Based on that, the doctor was very concerned about me and told me it must be some virus. The lab was closed by that time, but she needed me to come back in the morning for another blood test to narrow down what it could be. She was suspicious of dengue fever simply because it's the most common virus in Honduras. My friend and I just looked at each other and laughed, absolutely sure that it was not dengue fever as I had hardly any symptoms of it. So back home I went to write more sub plans and sleep until morning.

The next morning, my roommate Sarah and I went to the clinic so she could translate for me. We went straight to the lab and had my blood taken, but found that we would not get results for about 2 hours. I was frustrated and told Sarah that I wish they would skip the dengue test altogether as I'm sure I didn't have it and it would be a waste of time. Two hours and 570 lemps (about $30) later, I had a little slip of paper in my hand telling me dengue fever "positivo." I just looked at my roommate, laughed, and said, "that doesn't really mean positive, does it??" While we waited to see the doctor again, I just sat in disbelief and amusement--- I could afford to be amused as I was feeling much better by now. Also, my immune defense numbers had already gone up from 3,900 from the day before to 4,400-- a good sign I knew, even if it was still under normal range. We saw the doctor again who told me to rest and stay hydrated, that I could work if I felt well enough, and that I needed to come back again Thursday morning for another blood test to make sure I continued getting better (if my numbers had gone back down I would have needed to go to the hospital). We finished up with the doctor, caught a moto up to school, and I was back at school and feeling well by 10:45. I really really wanted to teach in the afternoon, and my kids also really really wanted me to teach, but Mr. Calderon the principal would not let me, so I sat at school and caught up on grading and such, which was also nice. Wednesday I taught, and it felt so good to be back in the classroom with my kids, and by Thursday when I went to the doctor again my numbers were all within normal ranges. I've been teaching the rest of the week and I feel really good, only slightly tired in the evenings and mornings.

I am so so thankful-- to the teachers and administration who were so understanding and willing to sacrifice their free periods to sub in my classroom, to the friends who helped care for me, translating at the doctor, getting me water, making me dinner, and even bringing me homemade soup, and to my students who were as cute as can be when I returned to the school. Most of all, I am so thankful that God was caring for me throughout all of that time. Dengue can be a very serious illness, and I only suffered from very mild symptoms of it. All the stories I've heard about dengue have been far more scary, and I even have a student in the hospital with it right now. Although I know I still scared my family pretty badly, I hardly got sick and feel fully recovered already. Praise and thanks be to God for watching over me and healing me quickly so I could return to the classroom!