Leukemia or Typhoid?

The doctor just called with the test results.

Since October 24th we have had this gy-normous question hanging over our heads:
                Does Jeff have leukemia or some other sort of blood cancer?
                Or . . . Did he merely have typhoid fever?

We got our wish!!  It was TYPHOID !!

His leukocytes and other blood numbers are now back to normal - PLUS the Ecuadorian doctor even did the test for typhoid fever but he apparently didn't notice the positive result.  He just told us to see a hematologist ASAP, that leukemia can progress quickly.

So at 2pm on that memorable day in Otavalo, Ecuador I immediately went to an internet cafe and began researching possible causes of his abnormal lab results.

In the meantime Jeff was in our hostel room, doing his best to connect to the airlines on Skype to see about flying back home immediately.

What I found in the course of my jet-speed research was that his symptoms directly matched the first week of typhoid fever.

What I had to get my brain wrapped around was this:  He didn't have ANY intestinal symptoms at all, and I've always thought that typhoid was an intestinal disease.  Yes, it does involve massive and even fatal intestinal symptoms - but NOT until after the first week of infection.  

By my calculations, Jeff was in his 4th day of high fever, severe headache and fatigue.  My research sources told me that many people don't have intestinal issues at this point of infection, while others may.

Everything fit together.  But if we were to run off to find a hematologist, it would be many more days or even weeks before getting treated (for the wrong disease), during which time the typhoid fever would progress into the life threatening stages.

So I ran upstairs at the hostel, convinced Jeff to get off of Skype, and explained my new theory of his condition.  We researched cures for typhoid, left the hostel to go to a pharmacy, and purchased the agreed-upon antibiotic AND lots more Tylenol for the fever.

By 4pm the same day as he'd seen the doctor and had the lab work done, he took his first dose of antibiotic.

Though he actually felt somewhat better the next day, it took well over a week for the fever to finally stop.  And we haven't known how his white and red blood cell counts have been doing after taking the antibiotic - until this morning.

We voted for TYPHOID!  And thank God, we won.

(Please do not attempt to do this trick in your own home.)

Now we can again finally enter the planning phase for our future life in Colombia.
Stay tuned for The Escape.

Buses in Latin America

All Latin American buses are not like the old Mexican chicken buses.  Actually, in our visit to Ecuador and Colombia, we haven't seen a single bus like that.

But we have seen various other kinds of buses.  For example, there is the large "executive" style bus with adequate leg room, seats wide enough for the average fanny, video screens on the back of every seat with various movies or music available for free (including headsets).  The actual seats are ergonomically designed and recline more than airline seats. These buses are air conditioned with windows that don't open and a bathroom in the back - to be used ONLY for urinating (which the conductor strongly emphasizes to each user).

Not made for foreigners

Then the next level bus is more . . . common.  Often the seats are not wide enough for a thin person's width, making it necessary for a normal sized person to flow over into their neighbor's seat or into the aisle.  Especially in Ecuador, these buses are used to transport all manner of freight, from huge sacks of potatoes to large bins and boxes all over the Andes, twisting, jerking and jolting around the extremely windy roads.

The most, absolute most, irritating aspect of this most-common type of bus is the tradition for the bus to stop and allow vendors onto the bus.  Down the bus aisle they stream, each loudly yelling the names of the goods they're selling. One after another, after another, after another in a seemingly endless stream these vendors create a parade. Mandarins, strips of fresh mango, water, soda, homemade fruit juices, breads, pastries, traditional food items, jewelry.  And our journey has to pause for this raucaus circus to end - usually in the heat of the sun baking the bus.

Then there are the vans with seats enough for about 12 passengers.  In some ways this type of transport is better.  They leave more often which is convenient.  They don't have room for vendors to come on board.  All the vans I've boarded are fairly old and show their wear - but they're not rattle-traps. 

Just over the border from Ecuador in Southern Colombia we took a fairly long trip in one of these vans.  Jeff sat in the front passenger seat and I sat between him and the driver.  And this driver thought he was a race car driver - clearly the worst daredevil I've seen.  As he jerked us in and out of lines of vehicles for many, many miles of windy, hair-pin turns in the Andes, I tried (for dear life) to not bump into the driver who was sitting right next to me and be responsible for killing a whole van full of people. That was a stressful ride.  Normally it's much better, thank God!

Manizales to Bogota:
So we chose an executive bus to travel east from Manizales to Bogota.  It was nine hours of unending twists over the Andes, down to the Rio Magdalena (remember that from 5th grade social studies?), and back up to over 8000 feet as we neared Bogota and it's 7 million people. At least these bus seats were comfortable and they let me stand up whenever I wanted to. 

Everyone has warned us of the dangers of Bogota. To the point that we had NO desire to deal with the bedlam of such a huge disorganized and scary town where avoiding being robbed in a taxi has resulted in an elaborate system of taxi numerology.

I have to stress that we so, SO didn't want to ride another bus, but we still opted for the less distressing option, immediately hopping on yet another one to get the hell out of Bogota.  So after a short stop at the Bogota bus terminal we hit the road, northward bound for several more hours to the small town of Zipaquira, a dot on the map which we figured was the way to our current destination of Villa de Leyva.

Really, we'd heard Villa de Leyva was a lovely location however we just needed to pass a couple of more days until our departure date from Bogota.

Bus lunch: granadilla, pitahaya, mango, wheat bread, and water - YUM!!!