Doctor, Heal Thyself

I should have seen it coming. All the signs were there.

The funny thing is, no matter how perceptive I think I am, I normally have the most difficult time dealing with my own intuitions about myself. And that's what happened this time.

Last week was grueling. I had two new staff members arrive, two huge proposal deadlines, three meetings to speak at in front of somewhat intimidating crowds, and a friend hospitalized with malaria and typhoid that desperately needed help.

On top of it, I have unexpectedly lost two mentors in less that three weeks, my relationship with Scott is in limbo, and I am in one of those phases again where I miss my mother and brother so much these days it seems heart-wrenching.

Nevertheless, my personality is one that, rather than deal with any of these things individually and try to come to partial resolution, I tend to "snowball" them all together, go into crisis mode, and overextend myself to the breaking point so that I will not have to deal with what is going on internally.

What normally results when I put myself in these circumstances is one thing: illness.

This fact, in and of itself, never ceases to annoy me.

No, I don't think I am some robot who is immune to the human condition that befalls us all sometimes but I rarely, if ever, get sick.

I am not sure whether this is due to my apparently healthy stock of mixed German and Italian genetics or the fact that my mother raised me and my brother with the creed: "Humans make themselves sick for a variety of reasons but there is always a choice on either side, even if unconscious. You can make yourself sick as much as you can make yourself well."

Of course, whenever I mention this to someone who thinks that philosophy is bunk and absolutely believes in the theory that things happen to people for no reason, or that life is random and completely out of one's control, they tend to get extremely angry with me.

"How can you possibly imply that my wife/husband/daughter/mother/etc. chose to get cancer or to become ill? How arrogant of you!!"

As I said, I am not proposing that folks do this willingly or even consciously, but I have seen enough people in my life perform supposedly "miraculous" comebacks from terminal illness, as well as those who have spent a lifetime being sick and have decided to change their philosophy, to know that neither me nor my mother is completely wrong.

What normally makes people sick (besides genetics) is one of two things: a near constant fear of "what could possibly go wrong" or, once things do go wrong, an unwavering focus on: "See, I have always had a disposition to this so it was inevitably going to happen..."

Anyway, whether I am wrong or right isn't really relevant. The point of the matter is that for me, and to a certain extent my brother, getting sick and staying sick in our household growing up wasn't really an option.

No, my mother is not some weird Christian Scientist who doesn't believe in modern medicine but she does believe that you can focus on health rather than sickness and, if you are sick, then it is up to you to not only treat the physical body, but also the mental/spiritual one that may have been contributed to your falling ill in the first place.

When I first moved to Africa a year ago, my family did not focus on what most families' do when their children move to Africa...I did not get, "Oh my God, be careful! You will get AIDS, malaria, typhoid, Ebola virus, dysentery, etc." Even Scott, who also, to an extent, believes in my mother's philosophy, did not spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the fact that I was going to get sick over here. We all focused on other things but, oddly enough, my health was not the highest on the list.

Now, that being said, I am not a moron. I take my anti-malaria medication, I am careful about what I eat, and I am not tempted to drink out of the tap no matter how many people tell me that my body should have "adjusted" to local flora and fauna in the water by this point. I don't focus on getting sick...but I also am not a fool who begs for it. I am careful but not paranoid.

When I got diagnosed with malaria early this spring I was shocked. Sure, I hadn't been feeling well but I never in a million years thought it was malaria. However, once I realized it was, I took my medicine, endured the couple of weeks it took to start feeling "right" again, and moved on. It shook me a bit but I decided to not focus on the fact that I had gotten the disease (which actually turned out to be a flare-up of something I likely had contracted years ago) and focus on not letting my immune system get so low again that I would have any future "flare-ups."

But, over this past week, I felt it coming.

I was running myself ragged both physically and emotionally. I had abandoned my normally decent eating habits and had gone down to eating one meal a day---all I thought I had time for. On Thursday, I started work at 7:30AM and was still going at 1:00AM. In my head was a non-stop dialog about my relationship with Scott, my future in Uganda, the health of my friend who was sick with malaria and typhoid, deadlines, etc. I couldn't seem to make myself stop...mind or body.

I also wasn't saying "no," as I have learned to do, when someone asked me to do something that was going to add even more pressure to my already jammed schedule. Because I didn't want to take time to actually deal with the thoughts in my head, I just kept adding more and more to my workload until Friday afternoon when I found myself dozing in front of my computer at the office at 3PM. My assistant, Hadijah, looked at me and said, "Patricia, you should really go home and go to bed. If you don't you are going to get sick, trust me!"

I reluctantly listened to her advice because it is so rare for me to fall asleep during the day, no matter how tired I am, and went home.

I didn't take a nap but I did chill out and read a book for a few hours and went to bed early. When I woke up on Saturday, however, I started noticing that things were just not feeling "right" with me but I pushed it away.

"Robert, can you come get me so we can go shopping?" I asked, calling him at 9AM after a fitful six hours of sleep.

Robert, my beloved driver, who never contradicts me and is always willing to abide by whatever crazy schedule I lay out...hesitated.

"Madame Boss, I am happy to come and get you but maybe you should rest today? Maybe you should just have a good lunch and then nap for a few hours?" he suggested.

"No!" I insisted, ticking off my to-do list for the day.

He reluctantly agreed and came and got me. After six hours of racing around doing my weekend shopping, he looked shocked when I got back in the car.

"Madame Boss, you are white!" he exclaimed.

I looked at him and laughed, "Thanks, Robert...thanks for the newsflash," I joked.

But he wasn't joking.

"No, you are really white. And you look funny. Your eyes look funny...they are not shining...so does your smile. You are going to get sick, you need to go home now!" he insisted.

I tried to protest but, in a rare act of defiance, he drove me home anyway. After leaving me with my multiple bags, he gave me some advice.

"You must now drink at least a gallon of water...warm, not cold...take a warm bath, eat something plain without any fats or a lot of sugar, and go to bed. If you do this now, you will probably be OK but, if you don't, you are going to be sick!" he warned.

Robert is not a hypochondriac and, as I said, he rarely protests my bizarre schedule but this time he looked very serious...and scared.

I didn't feel "great," for sure, but I also didn't feel "sick," either. So I took part of his advice (the water, the plain food, and the bath) but I ended up staying up until almost midnight working and chatting on the phone with friends.

I should have listened.

I woke up at 3Am on Sunday morning feeling like every organ in my body, and my entire muscular-skeletal system, had suddenly decided it didn't like the arrangement we had made to live together 34 years ago and stage a revolt.

Everything hurt.

I felt like I had malaria, the flu, typhoid, a severe GI attack...EVERYTHING, at one time.

As I lay in bed trying to beg the sun to go "off" and trying to will myself to crawl out of bed to reach the water bottles in the kitchen, I actually had to smile (even though it hurt).

I knew I didn't "have" anything...hell, I had everything...and I knew I had brought this upon myself. No denying it.

When I started to feel slightly better after nine hours of sleep and three gallons of water and the Ugandan equivalent of Gatorade, I actually had the peace of mind (because it's the only thing left when you don't have peace of body) to start dealing with all of the accumulated mental "snowballing" I had done over the past ten days.

Because I had slept for most of the day, I stayed up most of the night dealing with each issue that I had refused to look at separately, over the course of the hours of the middle of the night.

Finally, around 5AM, I went back to sleep. I got up and called Robert at 8AM, with my head threatening to split wide open and my organs still making moment-to-moment decisions about whether they wanted to live with me anymore, and said:

"Hey, Robert, you were right. I don't think I am going to be able to go to work today. I should have listened to you, I am sorry."

He was vindicated and concerned at the same time.

"I knew that was coming, Madame Boss! I know you don't always believe me but, in this country and on this continent, we know what to do to try to help someone not get sick and I was so worried about you!" he related.

I assured him I was fine and asked if he would be willing to come over around 3PM to go to the store for me to replenish my water and Gatorade supplies.

Robert has never seen me ill so I was embarrassed when he came to the door and saw me looking less-than-attractive.

He wasn't fazed.

Instead of getting the supplies for me, he insisted that I go along for the car ride.

"Robert, there is a good possibility that I will get sick in the car...you don't want that," I warned.

"Madame Boss, you need some air. It is only a half of a kilometer and I will do the shopping but we need to air you out...please, trust me," he implored.

I did and we returned back, without incident, a half hour later.

I promised Robert I would be back on the job tomorrow and he looked dubious.

"Maybe not tomorrow, but definitely Wednesday. You are getting better, your eyes are not so flat anymore," he diagnosed.

OK, so maybe I should listen this time. Maybe I should take my own philosophy to heart about what makes one ill...from the inside and the outside.

In the meantime, although I feel like someone's used carpet, I am thankful to have people in my life like my mom, my brother, Scott and, of course, Robert.

I think the message is:

"Doctor, heal thyself."