| 1 | | As the specialist walked back into the consulting room, she had |
| | a slight smile on her face. Feverish, shivering and nauseous as |
| | I felt, I was relieved when she confirmed that it was good news. “So I haven’t got |
| | malaria?” I asked. She shot me a surprised look. “Oh yes, you have malaria. It’s |
| | just that we thought you had the Ebola virus.” |
| 2 | | Perhaps I should have been relieved, but all I felt was shame. For not only |
| | had I ignored medical advice and taken no preventative measures on my travels |
| | abroad, it was the second time I had put myself in such danger. So here I was |
| | again, taking up a hospital bed with cerebral malaria because I thought I knew |
| | best. |
| 3 | | I was pushed in a wheelchair through a side entrance from the London |
| | School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine into University College Hospital next |
| | door, to a ward for blood disorders, full of patients with leukaemia, rare |
| | syndromes and diseases. It seemed surreal, for all around me people were |
| | seriously, properly ill, while I was here because I’d taken stupid risks. The staff |
| | talked about my low blood platelet count and potential liver failure, but I was so |
| | humiliated that I just lay there with the curtains closed around my bed. |
| 4 | | The truth was that I’d paid more attention to my sun screen than I had to |
| | protecting myself against malaria. Part of the problem was that I had simply |
| | regarded myself as bombproof when it came to my health. Apart from the usual |
| | childhood illnesses, I have always been fighting fit and, after having my tonsils |
| | out at the age of 11, I can’t remember ever feeling really unwell. |
| 5 | | What was also true was that since falling in love with Africa on my first visit at |
| | the age of 19, I had travelled the length of the continent without a single problem. |
| | I spent that gap year working my way from Cape Town to Cairo, swimming in |
| | lakes and spending most of my time outside, including sleeping outdoors |
| | whenever I could. I was bewitched by the place and, apart from the vaccinations |
| | for yellow fever, typhoid and the like, I didn’t take any of the other recommended |
| | safety measures. |
| 6 | | While some people simply can’t be bothered sticking to the extended course |
| | of anti-malarials and others worry about side-effects, I just assumed I’d be OK – |
| | and I was, in fact, absolutely fine. But not this time… |
| | |
| | Daily Mail |
