Taking "Bible-Bashing" To A New Level

I had to come back and share this tear-inducing piece of trivia with you all. Was doing a bit of reading about ganglions and the like, and came across the following piece of information:

Apart from aspiration, the more commonly used and medically correct procedure, another way to "get rid" of a ganglion or cyst is to give it a resounding thwack with the family Bible!! I´m not joking - you can google this if you doubt me!

Yes, a good hammering with a Giddeon is what will sort me right out! Now, all I need to do is find an English-speaking zealot! Stay tuned......

Happy Valentine's Day

No-one has to read this. It´s not going to be interesting, as I have no news other than sickness-related stuff. Yet again, I have been forced to flee my cell for a few hours in search of sanity and something remotely edible that I wont throw up.

Firstly, Happy Valentine´s Day to all!

Secondly, some more photos added to Peru album, and Ive created a New York one too.

Have just been reading about what the Chinese are planning to do with "The Playboy" - it´s going to be set in a Beijing hairdressers. I´m very upset. I might have to kill, or at least torture, some Chinese people. There´s a Chinese restaurant beside the hostal, maybe I´ll start there.....

Cuzco is rapidly losing its lustre. Once I leave, i´m sure I´ll remember all the best bits, but God! I just want to get out of here. NOW!! For one thing, I have little or no privacy now. The girls in the hostal have gone into Florence Nightingale Overdrive or something, one in particular. She means well, but I'm just to ill to deal with it. She´s 18, has just gotten this job and is taking her duties very seriously, so I think she has made me a project of sorts. She is telling absolutely EVERYONE who checks in about me, brings random strangers up to the door to see me (like I´m an exhibit or something! although I suppose I sort of am with my crop of wild hair and smelly pajamas...), :D even made me go to an internet cafe yesterday and wave at her mother over a webcam. As I say, she does mean well. She is constantly buzzing the room and asking me about what Im eating, she examined all the plates to see what I havent eaten. Help!! She´s wrecking my head!!!!!! She´s so nice and genuine that I cant take say Id just like to be left alone to wallow in my misery.

This morning sort of took the biscuit as I began to feel violated. She rang very early, asked if I wouldnt mind getting dressed and coming downstairs, as she had something very important to talk to me about. Grudgingly, I hauled ass downstairs scaring a few passing tourists on the stairs. One of the cleaners, whom I know by name but thats about it (she has no English), was with her looking embarrassed and sheepish. It took about 10 minutes of them giggling hysterically before I could get any sense out of them. Basically, Lourdes (the cleaner) has spied my €300 Gortex jacket in my room and liked the colour. She wanted me to trade for this absolute CAR ACCIDENT of a painting that she had done herself. She still seemed to think her painting was worth the cost of the jacket and pushed. I said that my parents had given me the jacket as a present before I left home (a lie) and that seemed to work. Were I in the whole of my health, I wouldn't feel so bothered maybe.I feel like my things are being rifled through when Im not there, and that I now have to go back to padlocking everything everytime I go out.

So, I was feeling a little wrankled as I left the hostal today for lunch. I had to wait a few hours before I could leave for my hair to dry. I was two minutes down the street and I got water bombed twice from a balcony above! I got soaked!!!!! Hair, clothes, everything! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

You´re allowed to laugh. I might see the funny side next year sometime!Okay, it is kind funny. :-)

Getting to Grips with my Ganglion

Im partially back in the land of the living today. Lying in that room is starting to affect my sanity! and there}s another week to go. Super! I arrived in Cuzco on 20 January with a plan of staying 10 days (2 weeks tops). It}s nearly a month later and Im still here. Its unfortunate, although I am very glad that I got sick here rather than in the back of beyonds in Bolivia!

Anyway, the first round of anitbiotics I was given had little effect and during the week I ended up with yet another high fever. So, the doctor was called again. This time, two doctors came and they were much more thorough than the first guy. They took blood tests, took temperatures, asked lots of questions, gave me a lot of advice and were back one hour later with the test results! I had typhoid and paratyphoid! I felt very reassured by them. They were such lovely doctors. So, I was told that I have a ganglion at the back of my head (which Im not allowed to touch). "I have a what now?"

I have a vague memory of coming across ganglions in my early days as a science student, but any extra knowledge about them is lost in the fog at the back of my head. I dont think its a serious thng anyway.

I also have a chest infection which seems to be quite slow in clearing up, and then there{s the typhoid - not too happy about that one, especially considering the euros I parted with for vaccinations in Ireland.

I have ZERO appetite (an entirely foreign experience for me!) EVerything tastes like paper, ugh. I really have to force myself to eat. Last week was full of throwing up and other bodily eliminiations, but thankfully this week I seem to be...um...stabilising. The dizziness is the worst. Walking down the street is such a physical effort! it feels really strange.

Anyway, the travel plans were thrown totally out of whack. My biggest concern was sorting out my Easter Island flights, which initially set me back a cool $500. I was expecting to have to pay an exorbitant change fee to alter the dates at this late stage, but was pleasantly surprised today to find, after 15 minutes on hold, that they are going to change the dates free of charge. HAPPY DAYS! So, Ive rebooked them for 3 weeks time. That should give me plenty of time to get better, and I might even squeeze in some of Bolivia after all.

I{, praying that Ill keep improving. Its very unpredictable, this thing - one day you feel like youre fine, then three hour later, youre back in bed with a fever and dizziness and a sick stomach. Whimper. Mam keeps telling me that this is character building ad will make me a better traveller once I come out the other side of it. Well, thats about the only good thing you could take out of the experience! ALthough, I was thinking about it last night, and in a way maybe its good that I was on my own - imagine how bad you{d feel for the other person(s) if you held them up for 3 weeks! That would make you feel 10 times worse probably.

ANyway, Ill stop whinging now. FIngers crossed that Ill be back on my feet and on the road again very soon. I nned to get out of Cuzco - not only am I sick of the sight of the place now, but Im liable to kill a finger puppet kid soon.

Diagnosis

I have typhoid

Need some serious bedrest for a couple of days. Back soon...I hope!

The Magic Taking Hold - Some Very Dark Days

Remember that slightly high temperature I told you all about in the last entry? Well, the next morning I woke up with a raging fever, convulsed with shivering and drenched in sweat, and for the last week I have been confined to the shadows of a tiny poky room with no hot water on doctor´s orders.

I´m very sick. The only reason Í am typing this is because I´m starting to go a bit crazy being in that room on my own all this time. It might pass some time.

I´m so miserable and it's hard to fight the urge to want to go home. (Well, no I suppose thats not true, although I really wish I was there right now.) Basically, I'm too sick to even get home! The doctor was called and due to some translation issues I couldnt really understand what he was saying was wrong with me. I got "infection" and "no go out" and "lots of liquids". He prescribed some antibiotics, relieved me of $60 and left. Delerium set in, as I was too weak to go out with my prescription. It got so bad at one point, I found myself laughing hysterically at a "melon balls" joke on Dharma and Greg. THANK THE LORD there is a tv in the room with some American stations on it. Never have I been so overjoyed to watch Friends and Smallville!

The girls in the hostal are great and they keep checking on me. According to them, the doctor said Im not allowd to drink cold water, but today I realised that I have all the symptoms of bad dehydration so feck that! Im overruling him! CAnt eat, the smell of food makes me heave, and the girls, though meaning well, are watching me like hawks on the doc's instructions.

Came off those awful antibiotucs today which hopefully will mean that the vomiting will stop at least. My plans for Bolivia are screwed! Its´looking now like I might have to miss it entirely. :( Boo-hoo! I´m going to see if I can change my Easter Island flight dates..if I could do that, I´d have some spare time on my hands.

In the meantime, I´m stuck watching repeats of crappy American sitcoms (although I´m not complaining!). RainMan is on tonight - the absolute highlight of my day. I have it all figured out, I can position myself right inside the door of the loo on a stool for easy access and using the mirror from the wall, I can watch TV indirectly! Ingenius!

Photo Update

I have finally managed to upload a few photos out of the hundreds I now have. They are mainly of the Inka Trail, but I just thought you´d like to see some of what Ive been up to.

For the technophobes, go to the photos section to the right of the screen. Click on slideshow and away you go! There´s only a few there. It takes FOREVER to upload them so I probably wont add any again for ages.

Update: Back in Cuzco and I have a temperature of 103! Weyhey! Thought I was dying last night. My whole body was freezing and my head was on fire. That´s what I get now for my pilgrimage up the mountains! Planning on leaving Cuzco tomorrow if I´m up to it. Really need to get my ass in gear - i dont even have TWO WEEKS to get to Santiago for the 15th! I´ll be hard pushed to fit in all the Bolivian stuff....

The train journey down from Aguas Calientes yesterday was AWFUL! What was supposed to be a one and a half hour jounrey ended up taking 5 hours because of a landslide on the tracks. Lovely! Everyone emerged from the train in a stupor, and then one poor man slipped as he was getting down the steps, fell right down between the platform and the train, but smashed the front of his face really hard on the platform. BLOOD EVERYWHERE! My solution was to shove my precious roll of loo-paper at him. I reckon the poor man has lost some front teeth.

I hobbled the three blocks from the train station back to my hostal and I really had to psyche myself up to have a shower and get ready to head out. In the end, I only lasted one hour in the pub and had to go back to bed. Really hope I dont have a flu coming on...last thing I need. Even chronic diarrhoea is preferable....

well, maybe not....