Infection, Leeches, And Malaria

Khao Sok is a rain forest and a national park and we stopped off there for a couple of days on the way to Koh Phi Phi. To get there we took an overnight ferry from Koh Tao back to the mainland and then a bus to the park. We were now five strong: me, Mass, Sam, Sarah, and our new Chinese-Australian friend, Hao.

On the overnight ferry, there were no seats, only very narrow mattresses, each one butted up to the next. When I say narrow, I mean one shoulder-width wide. We spent the first half hour devising ways to rescue Hao's glasses, which had fallen down a deep crack in the boat wall. We were finally successful using a pocket knife tied to the end of a shoelace. Some drugs that require a prescription in western countries are available over-the-counter in Thailand, one of which is Xanex. Hao bought some before we got on the ferry and immediately took two, along with a motional sickness pill. In the middle of the night, Massey woke up an saw Hao with one eye open in the middle of REM sleep, the eye jerking every which way. Hao was still breathing, so Mass left him alone and went back to sleep. I was restless most of the night and when I turned over, I kept bumping into Sarah and waking her up. In the morning, I was in the restroom on the boat and I got a sudden feeling of nausea and then almost fainted. After we got off the boat, I started getting chills, which invariably means I have a fever.

We had to wait for an hour for the bus and after that, I felt much better, back to normal. When we got off the bus and it drove away, I realized that my shoes, which had been clipped to my backpack had come detached and were still on the bus. I was down to just my flip flops. After we found a place to stay, Mass, Sarah, and I took a walk through the rain forest for a few hours while Sam and Hao slept. Sam wasn't feeling well and Hao had an infected foot that had swollen to twice normal size. The forest was muddy and filled with leeches. It seemed like wearing shoes helped the leeches grab on. Wearing my flip flops, I didn't get any the whole hike.

That evening, my chills had returned and I immediately knew that I had malaria. The hallmark symptom of malaria is a fever that appears, leaves, and then returns again. I took my temperature with my trusty thermometer, which I'd been using ever since college. I had a fever of 106.7F, which meant that I was headed for a coma and possible brain damage. But, after the same thermometer claimed that Sam and Massey both had temperatures over 100F as well, I decided maybe I wasn't on death's doorstep quite yet afterall.

Mass and Hao rented scooters that night and I'm sorry I missed out on the fun. Hao ended up laying his down in some gravel. It left a small dent, but nothing major. Sam had her hands full making sure I didn't die from malaria and making sure Hao didn't kill himself on his scooter. The next day, the gang, minus me, went on a tour of the park, seemingly the only way to see it. The tour included kayaking, lunch at a floating town, hiking to a cave, and riding on a bamboo motorboat. It rained hard the entire afternoon and Mass and Hao were without rain jackets. Hao used life preservers to try and stay warm while Massey put on his sun glasses and started meditating to channel heat into his body. Hao, who had lost his shoes on Koh Tao, ended up breaking his flip flops on the trip and hiked most of it barefoot. I was in bed the whole day, but the fever broken by the evening, apparently not malaria after all. I went out to dinner sporting my pillow-hair mohawk to celebrate.