I didn't sleep well all night...my body was achy all over, so I skipped my morning run. I made it down for breakfast, and felt like I was going to puke right after eating. The sick feeling continued, but being the stubborn, retard I am, I went to my volunteer placement. Around 10:30 I started violently puking up any and everything that I had eaten that morning. Luckily Vincent had a cell phone on him and called the office to get someone to pick me up. About 30 minutes and a few more rounds of vomiting later, I finally made it home, where the program director decided I should probably go to the doctor. By then I was running a fever, so I grabbed the giant alpaca blanket off my bed and headed over to the clinic....

At the clinic I sat in line waiting to see the doctor, but apparently I looked like crap (which is what I felt like) and one of the nurses insisted on taking me to the emergency area. My temperature was around 100 F, so they assumed I had some sort of stomach thing or typhoid (who knows where that came from) and took me to the back. The nurse started me on an IV, being sure to secure it with enough tape to keep it in my arm for the next week, and proceeded to start mixing a bunch of random stuff and inject it into me. Then came the blood test, a sub-cutaneous injection and my personal favorite (NOT)...a shot into my poor rear end. I have no clue what the heck they gave me, besides that it was something to lower my temperature, but I do know that it hurt like hell. The nurse shoved the 3 inch long needle all the way into the my butt, making sure the burning sensation penetrated into the deepest recesses of my gluteus. I'm pretty sure being sick lowered my pain tolerance, but my butt hurt for the next hour from that stupid shot and the best part was that my temperature didn't go down. In fact it went up...103 F! By then I had finished my IV and was asking for something to drink--Anything! 3 Sips of water later, it all came back up...with Bile. An hour later, we finally convinced the doctor to come see me, but he didn't want to come near me in case I had "El Gripe Porcina"...Swine Flu. Instead he said I should go to the hospital and get tested for Swine Flu. Since the doctor wasn't going to help me, we left and stopped by the house to pick up my passport, intending to go to the local hospital in Ayacucho immediately after...

Well apparently the doctor's paranoia resulted in the whole CCS staff freaking out. I couldn't go to the hospital here...I had to go to Lima. If I stayed here, the test would take over a week to get and to make matters worse a three day strike was scheduled for next week...so staying in Ayacucho simply was not an option. On top of it all, apparently it was a public health issue, so I would have to drive eight hours to Lima that night and get tested in the morning, which was the last thing in the world my achy, feverish, dehydrated, nauseated body wanted to do, but I didn't get a say in the matter and it was decided that we would leave at 1 am. Yuck!

The vomiting and fever slowly subside throughout the night, but my body continued to feel awful. I remember parts of the car ride, but was in an awkward state between being asleep and awake the whole time. Finally we got to Lima and the private hospital "Clinica Anglo Americana." By then I was holding down liquids and the fever was completely gone. My swine flu test came back normal, as did the tests for an intestinal issue, so the verdict was that I had a violent reaction to the antibiotic prescribed to me, which sounds a lot less cooler than being the first case of Swine Flu in Ayacucho, but personally I am very happy to not get that honor...

Needless to say, after that adventure, I think I'll be ready to be home in less than 2 weeks.