We met up with our friends in Istanbul as planned. We were all staying in a hostel which had a very social rooftop bar, situated within walking distance to a lot of the action. Mr Woog and I were romantically ensconced in some bunk beds with 4 others in the room.
On the second day I started not to feel so crash hot. And about 12 hours later, I was erupting from both ends with alarming vigour and regularity. But that was nothing. The worse was yet to come.
My condition deteriorated quickly. I spent hours in the bathroom, lying on the floor with my face on the cool, grime encrusted tiles. I was then moved back into my bed where I spent days with the chills, the sweats, stomach cramps which were akin to full strength labour and natural based hallucinations. Every sip of water I had was quickly followed by an hour of pain so intense, I figured death was better than this.... and hoped that it would be quick.
I started thinking about religion and wondered, what if the bible bashers where right? Then I figured I was quite a good negotiator, so I would have a fair shot talking God into letting me into Heaven, if indeed that was the case.
Mr Woog is not good in these situations, but I insisted he call my Mum so plans could be made to have me Medi-vacced back to Australia so I could say goodbye to my family before I passed away. My mum did not answer the phone, but HIS mum did, and she insisted that Mr Woog get me a doctor IMMEDIATELY.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat and quickly diagnosed me with Bacillary Dysentery.
In extreme cases dysentery patients may pass over a litre of fluid an hour. More often, individuals will complain of nausea, abdominal pain, and frequent watery and usually foul-smelling diarrhoea accompanied by mucus and blood, rectal pain, and fever. Vomiting, rapid weight loss, and generalized muscle aches sometimes also accompany dysentery. In rare occasions, the amoebic parasite will invade the body through the bloodstream and spread beyond the intestines. In such cases, it may more seriously infect other organs such as the brain, lungs, and the liver. Transmission is fecal-oral.
- Wikipedia
Transition is fecal-oral.
That is a fancy schmany way of saying that at some point I ingested someones ploppy.
It may have been from accidentally drinking contaminated water, or shaking the hand of some foul unhygienic person then picking something out of my teeth. Or sharing a cigarette with someone who was smoking out of his ass.
It may have been from accidentally drinking contaminated water, or shaking the hand of some foul unhygienic person then picking something out of my teeth. Or sharing a cigarette with someone who was smoking out of his ass.
It took a week of bed rest to let the bastard ploppy bug work it's way out of my body. I lost 6 kilograms in one week! As soon as I was strong enough, I packed up my bag and left that stinky, manky room with the 50 times sharted on mattress and headed to the train station.
Destination? Greece.
We got on a train, sat back and watched Istanbul disappear into the distance. Istanbul had not been kind to me. I was not sorry to see the back of it and I vowed never to return.
24 hours later I returned to Istanbul.
To be continued.........
