How a Mosquito changed my life forever! God does move in mysterious ways! Chapter 1

This story is a multi chapter story . I will try to intrigue you and capture your imagination so as when you read it you will be consumed by the events which took place. Please read every chapter in sequence to get a full understanding. I hope you enjoy and God Bless!!               As I start to write this story it is the 10th of July, 2017. The sequence of events and story which is a true account began in April of this same year. As I mentioned in my introduction, I am an ESL teacher (English as a second language). In April, I was teaching at a private school in an area about 45 kilometers (30 miles) from Panama City, Panama. I had only been teaching students there for about 3 months, although I taught in other private schools in Panama for 3 years. I previously was teaching the teachers English at this same school for 6 months. The Directora (principal) liked my style of teaching and asked me if I would like to teach the students from grades 7-9. I accepted the position and taught 5 different subjects of English (grammar, reading, writing, conversation and literature). It was very challenging and frustrating as a good 80% of the students didn't know basic English. (Spanish was their native language) I wanted to only speak English in the classroom and needed them to try to immerse themselves totally in English. As I call it “Full English”.The way the ministry of education dictates how English needs to be taught is ludicrous. Anyway all this will be another topic composition.

  It was a Thursday afternoon that April when I started to experience flu like conditions or so I thought, so that day after classes when I returned to my house, I went to bed as soon as I arrived home at about 3:30 and tried to drink as much fluids as possible. I always remember being told that sleep and liquids and a few aspirins (or Tylenol) would help out. When my wife came home she made me some soup which I tried to eat a bit of and she checked my temperature, it was about 38 C or a little over 100 F. I slept until I had to get up to get ready and go to the school which  was normally about 5 AM. Schools in Panama normally start their classes at 7 AM, and depending on grades can finish anywhere from 11:30 to 2:30. My classes ended at 2:30. I arrived not feeling so hot, but me being the type of person who doesn't like to miss a day at work, I persevered. As the day progressed, I continued feeling a bit worse but , I endured the day to finish my classes that Friday. I remember one of my students asking me “Teacher why are you sweating so much?” as my shirt was drenched. I thought it was just going in and out of air conditioned classrooms. Classrooms in most schools in Panama are not designed into the school architecture well and you exit and enter the classrooms from outside non air conditioned areas. So when the end of classes arrived, I was happy to get out and go home and get into bed and again try to sleep the symptoms off.   

  See, on the Saturday my wife and I had made plans months earlier to go to one of the resort islands (Taboga Island) for the weekend. I did not want to disappoint her. We hadn't had any real leisure time in quit a while (I was trying to develop my own English school for adults and had taken up a lot of time, money and effort) Besides we had already paid for this weekend and there were no refunds. (I hate to loose money like this). She arrived home and saw me in bed again and I kept telling her that I will be good in the morning to go away with her. Again she tried to give me some soup which I really didn't feel like eating and some liquids which I only drank a bit. She was getting worried and wanted to go to emergency at the hospital, but I told her all would be good in the morning As I slept through the night, my body was perspiring unbelievably. At one point I woke up and noticed that my side of the bed was as if someone poured a bucket of water on me. My pillows were soaked wet. I didn't want to disturb my wife so I just put a heavy towel on my pillows and 2 or 3 where I slept. Lest to say, it was a hell of a night. On Saturday morning, at about 7AM when we were planned to get ready to go, my wife looked at me and knew it was not going to happen. She took my temperature, which by that time was almost 41 C or 105 F. I was still perspiring and had a gnawing headache (which for the record I maintained for the next 7 weeks) I was so weak and just wanted to sleep. I am a very stubborn man and insisted that it was just a 24 hour flu, which by now was more than 48 hours. I didn't want to eat or drink and resisted all my wife's pleas.  Looking back now, it was very foolish of me. I slept all day Saturday, missed our trip, but started to feel a bit better in the afternoon, the fever had gone down and I figured the worst was over and in a few days would feel normal again.   

  Sunday came and I felt pains all over my body and the pores on my arms were very red. I still had no strength and had a hard time even getting up to go to the bathroom. I just stayed in bed and did nothing, trying to regain some strength. When my wife saw that I could not take care of myself, she decided to call her boss and request some of her last years vacation time. At first she requested 1 week which ended up becoming 6 weeks of vacation time. In Panama all workers are given 30 days vacation time per year, as well as 18 sick days (as long as they have a doctors note, which is no great task to obtain, haha). Later that day in the afternoon I finally gave in and let me take me to a clinic (Panama has tons of small private clinics). I barely made it in and after sitting in the waiting room for almost 1 hour while my wife stood in 2 different lines to pay the fee and then to register all my information, I was called in to see the doctor. She examined me and then I had some blood tests and a chest x-ray. So back to the waiting room and feeling like passing out, I waited for the results for another 30 or so minutes, was called back in to the doctors office where she said it looked like I had contracted “Dengue” and my lungs had been infected. Above the clinic was a small private hospital which she wanted me to go (thinking that I had money being a extranjero (foreigner)) or had some good private insurance) I had neither, I had applied for private health care insurance and because of a pre-existing condition, (Diabetis) the cost was way above what I could afford, so she recommended that I go to a public hospital in Panama City.

So at about 5:30 we decided to head to Panama City. It is a very winding highway because of the mountainous terrain. I had the front passenger seat reclined all the way and was sort of lying in the fetal position, trying not to pass out and vomit. Believe me, it was not fun. After arriving into Panama City and tying to find a parking spot near the hospital (which it not an easy thing to do anywhere in Panama), we finally found one. Ruth (my wife) helped me to go into the emergency area. I sat in a chair and again waited for her to pay the fee and register me. We didn't have to wait too long before the triage nurse called me in, she took my blood pressure and then waited in another area to see the emergency doctor. We gave him the results from the blood tests and the chest x-ray that were taken a bit earlier in the afternoon. After explaining all the symptoms to him from the past few days, He didn't seem to think I had “Dengue” because my pours didn't seem to have any type of blood leakage. So, we went on our way. In my opinion, that doctor didn't really give a rats ass at all, only to move on to the next poor sap.

  Well it was about 8PM when we headed back to our home in “La Chorrera”. When I got home, Ruth again helped me to walk, and went straight to the bed which was comforting. I slept all night without eating (Ruth kept trying to put some soup broth in my mouth). I just didn't want to eat or drink, which was not good, I was losing more strength and getting dehydrated as time went by. Monday morning came and then later that day went to another clinic where Ruth said she knew the doctor. Did the whole waiting game again, new blood tests, but this time the doctor confirmed that I had “Dengue”. He explained to us that there is no real treatment we could really do, but let it run its course.    Ruth and I did our research on dengue and discovered that there are 5 different stereotypes which has 47 different strains of the virus which causes “Dengue fever”, and are closely related to “Malaria, West Nile, Yellow Fever and the Zika Virus”.   

 To be continued: Continue to chapter 2