So I went to India....

I went to India (Bengaluru) for 3 weeks for work.  It was awesome.  The city, other than too many people and too much trash, was beautiful.  The people were insanely nice the food otherworldly awesome.  

I got to explore the city some and took a weekend trip to Mysore and Brindavan Gardens, both incredibly beautiful.

Seeing the poverty was eye opening, and this is coming from a someone that spent 6 months w/out electricity or running water in Kentucky as a child.   The temples were beautiful.

The trip changed my life in ways that I don't want to put into the public domain, but wow.  I'm so much better for going.

Until the plane rides home.  Fever hit.  Chills hit.  I wished I were dead.

My stomach was fine.  Had no clue what was going on.

Arrived home at ~6:00pm last Saturday.  Checked my temp, 103.7F  Took ibuprofen and placed cool rags on head and chest.  Went to sleep.

Woke up at 0330 to a 104.8 (yes, one hundred four point eight) fever.  Went to the ER.  They didn't know what was going on with me.  They got fever down with an IV equalivent of ibuprofen or something.  But then they got my white blood cell count, 1.6 and admitted me to hospital.

It is amazing how much blood they can take over the course of 3 days when you come from a third world country and they don't know what you have.  I got all the suggested vaccinations before I left.

Finally, Tuesday morning I spoke with an infectious disease specialist.  He thinks it is chikungunya.  WBC count was down to 1.1  The sent me home out of fear of me getting a hospital acquired infection.  The test results wont be back till early next week though, but all the symptoms line up: high fever, joint & muscle pain, eyeballs hurt when I looked far in a direction.

So I guess I can cross "go to third world country and acquire exotic mosquito borne disease" off my bucket list.

Sounds like a interesting trip. 

Pretty sure you aren't supposed to bring those kind of souvenirs home though. Hope you feel better soon. 

m4ff3w said:

I went to India (Bengaluru) for 3 weeks for work.  It was awesome.  The city, other than too many people and too much trash, was beautiful.  The people were insanely nice the food otherworldly awesome.  

I got to explore the city some and took a weekend trip to Mysore and Brindavan Gardens, both incredibly beautiful.

Seeing the poverty was eye opening, and this is coming from a someone that spent 6 months w/out electricity or running water in Kentucky as a child.   The temples were beautiful.

The trip changed my life in ways that I don't want to put into the public domain, but wow.  I'm so much better for going.

Until the plane rides home.  Fever hit.  Chills hit.  I wished I were dead.

My stomach was fine.  Had no clue what was going on.

Arrived home at ~6:00pm last Saturday.  Checked my temp, 103.7F  Took ibuprofen and placed cool rags on head and chest.  Went to sleep.

Woke up at 0330 to a 104.8 (yes, one hundred four point eight) fever.  Went to the ER.  They didn't know what was going on with me.  They got fever down with an IV equalivent of ibuprofen or something.  But then they got my white blood cell count, 1.6 and admitted me to hospital.

It is amazing how much blood they can take over the course of 3 days when you come from a third world country and they don't know what you have.  I got all the suggested vaccinations before I left.

Finally, Tuesday morning I spoke with an infectious disease specialist.  He thinks it is chikungunya.  WBC count was down to 1.1  The sent me home out of fear of me getting a hospital acquired infection.  The test results wont be back till early next week though, but all the symptoms line up: high fever, joint & muscle pain, eyeballs hurt when I looked far in a direction.

 

So I guess I can cross "go to third world country and acquire exotic mosquito borne disease" off my bucket list.

India is beautiful buuuuuuuut yeah the risk vs reward isn't worth it for me. At least I'm not a woman. I'll go back to Afghanistan no problem though

An Indian gentleman who ran a truck repair business here(after immigrating as a teen) had to insist to the doctors, rather forcefully, that his son who had recently been on a trip to India, "It's malaria, I tell you!"

He was right.

All I wanted was a bumper sticker 

A friend of mine ( same guy mentioned in the Thunderbird thread) traveled to Nepal a few years ago. He spent about six months getting vaccinated for just about everything. I remember him tellling me that he still expected to get very, very sick at some point. And he did.