I woke up one morning and felt a huge knot in my throat. “Maybe I just had a bad night of sleep,” I told Quinn as we were getting ready to start our day. And then BAM–it hit me. I felt completely drained of all energy and needed to lay down right away. I had a horrible headache and was freezing cold so I put on a long sleeve shirt and added as many layers of blankets on top of me as I could.

These were very similar beginning symptoms to when Quinn had Dengue, so we knew I had to rest and hydrate myself as much as possible. But this time it was just Quinn and I running the hostel, bar & restaurant, so if I was out for a while Quinn would be left to run the hostel and LOOTB herself. We both wanted to make sure I heal as fast as possible, so we agreed that I would go to the doctor’s the next morning after I rested all day and night. Quinn left the room to take care of business and I fell back asleep.

The next day I went to the doctors right away. I explained my symptoms to the doctor and she was confident that I had Dengue Fever as well.  She asked me to return the next day for a blood test which she would send to the lab in Managua to see if it was actually Dengue.

I woke up that morning feeling even worse. My eyes were so sensitive that I kept sunglasses on in the bedroom with the lights off.  I decided that rather than going back to the doctor’s and have her tell me to go to the hospital, I would skip that step and just go straight to the hospital with Juancito (the shuttle driver). It was the same hospital that I went to with Quinn in Granada. Unfortunately, Quinn couldn’t come with me because someone had to stay on property and run the whole thing, but fortunately things were getting quieter at the hostel as we approached the low season.

I first spoke with a doctor in the ER and explained my symptoms. He wrote a note for me to give to the lab so that they could take my blood for the proper tests. They took a sample of my blood and then handed me a little cup for a urine sample. There was no top to the cup, just a small pixie cup I carefully carried through the halls of the hospital. I gave my sample and waited. An hour and a half later they came out with my results.

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