Flu season

Katie has been fighting some sort of disease for the past 2 weeks. Its progression went like this: first, a little diarrhea; then a runny nose; at its worst, a night of restless fever, followed by 3 evenings when she vomited immediately after dinner. One of these nights was also restless, including teeth-grinding. For about the last week, she has continued to have a hacking cough and banana slugs up her nose. Mucus is now turning green and crusty, a sign that the immune system has kicked in. Meanwhile, during the worst of this, I was simultaneously trying to complete three curriculum submissions for the department – this meant 1-on-1 meetings and advisory committee meetings most of each day, while writing and editing at night. Only it was particularly difficult for me to do any work at night, because I would help Katie get to sleep (conservatively a 20-minute process) and 5 minutes after I got back on my computer, she would be calling for me again. Well, it’s clear I wore myself down, so by the curriculum deadline (Apr 25), my nose was a torrent of phlegm and my patience worn down to a thin veneer. Alan was also grumpy: although he was least affected by disease (just one day of self-described incredible gaseous eruptions), he was fielding calls from the coast about how much we were needed there, plus running a lot of errands and forgetting to eat.
The good news/bad news was that the Friday afternoon meeting for administrative feedback on the curriculum submissions was canceled at the last minute. Instead, we left immediately for the coast. On the 4-hour drive, my scratchy throat transformed into earaches so intense that I couldn’t hear, totally precluding my normal Katie-entertainment duties. Then Katie said her ears were hurting too. I was ready to go to the emergency room at the Swakopmund hospital, but Alan correctly diagnosed our ills: My stuffy head had dis-equilibrated from the pressure differential between 5000 ft and sea level, cured in a matter of minutes after a dose of Panado (not available in the US, but Alan had heard of it before). Katie was simply trying to be a participant in everything and still just had a runny nose (well, she had vomited earlier…). Definitely the nadir of our trip!
A longer-term health concern has been Alan’s sore foot, probably plantar fasciatis, although not quite in same spot as in years past. It’s been exacerbated by several long barefoot walks on the beach, plus his first choice for shoes to be worn in the water – so many nylon straps across the top that they caught rocks top and bottom, causing blisters and sores as well. A couple of weeks ago Alan succumbed to family peer pressure and went searching for size 13 Crocs – Katie and I both wear these almost constantly, in and out of the water, and we’ve found them extraordinarily comfortable and functional. Fortunately, Alan was able to find a manly black pair of Crocs that fit him – shoes are a big deal in Namibia, and there were plenty of stores to check, although we still feel lucky that there were actually several styles in his size – and foot complaints have eased. Of course, Alan had to eliminate all the Crocs logos by drawing over them with a black sharpie!