Cusco - The Sick Days
The day after we got back from our Machu Picchu trip Jammie woke up with a bad fever. Fearing the worst we called our new friend Luis to find out where we should go. He recommended the Pardo Clinic, a small private clinic that had English speaking doctors. Adrial and I got Jammie to the clinic and Luis met us there. We ended up with a German doctor name Hanna Menke who encouraged us through the process of waiting for lab results.
After urine and blood samples were taken and processed the results came back. Jammie had contracted Typhoid fever. At first we were shocked, Typhoid sounded like some 19th century horror. Images of the black plague flashed through my head. After the initial shock Dr. Menke explained that Typhoid was very common and easily treatable with antibiotics. She prescribed a pharmacy's worth of medicine and we took Jammie back to the hostel to rest.
Two days later, Jammie was starting to recover when Adrial woke up to discover that he had a fever as well. Immediately we suspected a Typhoid epidemic was brewing in our hostel room. I began to worry, sharing close quarters with two infected people made me very nervous. Back to the Pardo Clinic we went.
After blood and stool samples were taken from Adrial we discovered that he did not have Typhoid, instead a two-for-one bacterial infection and amoebic parasite were causing his symptoms. Great now there were three diseases I could catch from my so called friends. I also had a blood test done at Pardo and discovered that my lack of symptoms were easily explained by my perfect health, lucky stroke so far.
I now assumed the role of dad, getting chicken soup and telling my children when to take their medicine. After a couple of days of this everybody started to feel better and I was off the hook. We heavily invested in hand sanitizer and spent the next week applying it 10 times a day.