Letter # 67 - February 22, 1979

I mailed off three postcards today. They are all addressed to you. They were written by Diana about a week ago while we were up in Kamiendor, but we didn't have a chance to mail them until now. Yesterday, I picked up 3 letters from you, 2 from the Goulters, and 1 from the Fletchers. The one from the Fletchers was mailed Dec 21, and only had 30 cents worth of stamps on it, so I think it must have gone surface mail. It's good to hear you got the negatives. I hope you have received our last letter, where we said that we received the two packages.

That is quite a bit of space used up just double-checking on previous correspondence. Now onto new business.

Diana has tonsilitis. It is a long story and I will tell it at its full length, but I will wait until the next page.

This time last week, I was the sick one. I have a sore on the back of my heel which has been there over a month. It was slow in healing, with many setbacks and re-infections. I think it was on Sunday, Feb 18, that I think we finally gave up with trying to cure me ourselves, and went to see the medical dispenser there in Kamiendor. He washed my foot and put a great big bandage over the sore. He said that what was probably causing it is a microscopic organizm that travels under the skin. Where it then bites you, puss forms, and it gets infected, and the sore starts all over again. This seems to be what was happening. Besides my main sore (one inch across of raw skin), pimples often appeared at distances of 1 to 2 inches away. He said that the way to control it was to soak my foot in warm water twice a day to kill them off. It seems to be working. So far, since then my sore has not gotten worse, and it is improving to the point that I sometimes tend to forget to take care of it as I should.

That was Sunday that we went to the dispenser. Diana felt fine then, so we had no questions to ask him concerning her own health.

Very early (4 AM) Monday morning, though, Diana was sick. She had a fever, felt sore all over, complained of pain in her lower stomach region, and a little in her throat, and every so often spit up what seemed to be a combination of saliva and spit.

We didn't know what was wrong with her. Kamiendor's nurse came to see her and give her an injection for the pain and some pills to take. The nurse didn't know what was wrong either, but they seemed to think it was some kind of "woman trouble".

Diana's fever and pain and spitting continued throughout the day and into the next night. Gradually the pain in her stomach disappeared and the pain in her throat grew greater. She didn't feel like eatting anything, and started having more pain when she tried to swallow her pills.

We had a baby deer which was only about a week old. It slept on some rags in a box in the corner. Monday afternoon, I noticed that the deer had dirtied the rags and then himself, so I washed the rags and then washed the deer. This was busy work to keep me from worrying about Diana. That night the deer slept on a pair of my underware in his corner.

About 3 AM Tuesday morning, both Diana and I were awakened by the deer. It was crying out just like a child. We thought it might be cold after its bath, so we brought him up in bed with us to keep him warm. The deer kept crying though. After awhile, Diana told me to put him back down on the floor. Then I put the kerosene lamp near his head to help keep him warm.

At about 6 AM the deer had stopped making noises. At about 7 o'clock I went to look at it, as it was now light enough to see better. The deer wasn't moving, and appeared to be dead. I put my ear down to him and heard his heart beat and felt him breathing. He wasn't dead! I still had hope that he would live. I removed him from the clothes and placed him on the floor. The sun was now shining. The deer tried to get up but couldn't. He was too weak. We layed him on the clothes again. By 8 AM he was dead.

Diana sat down on the floor next to the deer and suddenly burst out in loud crying. Some women passing outside our window thought she was crying because of her sickness, and so came in to say they were sorry. The reason for the outburst of tears was the deer being dead, but Diana's sickness was also a big part. It was a very emotional moment for both of us, and I was held speechless because I wanted to cry also. I started seeing similarities between the deer's dying and Diana's being sick, and so I grew really afraid. I saw how delicate life was, and that Diana might be heading for the same thing if she didn't start to improve.

I dropped the deer's body down the latrine, stopping first to say a prayer for him, and for Diana and me. When I got back to our room, I closed and locked the door, closed the window, and knelt down next to Diana lying on the bed. I burst out crying. Diana reassured me that she was not going to die, that she was going to get better. This releaved me, and I was able to talk again without feeling like crying.

Early that afternoon (1 PM), I returned home from the worksite to find Diana still with a fever and still in pain. I asked her if she could bear the traveling, and so we agreed to head for Freetown immediately. It was 4 o'clock by the time I finished packing, so Diana climbed onto the back of my motorcycle, still wearing her robe. We slowly rode the two miles down to Densembadu to wait there for a lorry. We were lucky in that we found one waiting. We found spots in the back, with our backs propped against bags of coffee beans. It was a good trip the 41 miles down to Koidu. Sitting as we were, the badness of the road didn't affect us too much. In fact, God was on our side. During this trip, Diana's fever broke, and since that time it hasn't come back.

We arrived at the chief's house in Koidu at about 8 or 9 PM, and we went straight to bed. Diana didn't get worse that night, but she didn't get any better either. She still had the pain in her throat and still had to spit every now and then, and felt very weak. She hadn't eatten hardly anything the last two days.

Friday February 23, 1979

The next morning, Wednesday morning, we got up and packed our things. Diana was over her fever now, but her throat hurt and she felt weak all over. If she had felt stronger, I would have put her on the bus alone to go to Freetown, while I would head back to the work in Kamiendor. Diana was too weak though, to travel alone, so we both got on the bus to come to Freetown. Diana got a window seat at the back of the bus, so that when she had to spit it wouldn't fly back in on any people behind. I sat next to her.

In the fold-down center aisle seat next to me, a young mother sat. She had to stand up whenever someone wanted to pass. She had a baby with her, and so every time she had to stand up, she would just sit the baby on my lap. Alot of the time, I would keep the baby even after the woman had sat back down, so that I was probably holding the kid, off and on, for maybe 20% of the time. The kid never cried or anything when I held her. She was always happy and quite content to sit where she was. Sometimes, while her mother had her, she would cry to show that she was hungry. Towards the end of the journey, I gave the kid to Diana to hold. Diana didn't hold her for more than a minute or so before the kid wet her pants. That was the only time on the trip, and she waited until Diana held her. Diana then quickly gave the kid back to me.

We reached Freetown at about 1 PM Wednesday. We took a taxi straight to the Peace Corps office. We both looked pretty ragged and dirty from the traveling. Diana was wrapped up in all kinds of clothes, and looked very sick. I probably looked pretty bad myself, because at this time we still didn't know what was wrong with her, and so was really worried. We went straight up to the Peace Corps doctor on the 3rd floor. He wasn't busy, and so he saw us right away.

We started to explain all of the things that were wrong with Diana. The doctor got up, looked in Diana's throat, told me to get up and have a look for myself, and then informed us that she had tonsilitis. He thumbed through his medical books, found "tonsilitis", looked at the symptoms, and looked at the cure. He gave her some penicillin pills. She is to take 1 at a time, 4 times a day for 10 days.

When we reached home, Diana had them cook up some pepper soup with lots of pepper. She said that the pepper would kill off all that stuff in her throat.

Saturday February 25, 1979

Anyway, we slept okay on Wednesday night, except for the fact that Diana decided that she wanted to get up and take a bath at 5 in the morning.

On Thursday, I left her over at her mother's house for the day.

On Friday, Diana felt pretty much back to normal, and today she is out doing some shopping, getting supplies to bring back up to Kamiendor.

We went out to the movies last night, and then out dancing after that. I guess it would be safe to assume that Diana feels cured. I'm still having her take her pills for a few more days though, just to make sure.

Other business now. Last week Bob Yust, one of the new water supply volunteers, decided to go home. That now makes 3 out of 4 have now left. Last year we only kept one of the two volunteers that came in. Including me, that means that we now have 3 water supply volunteers remaining. I will probably stick around to help out during the next training program, but definately will be coming back to America after that. That should be around the middle of November. This will be perfect in that it puts Diana and I back in America just in time to have a "first anniversary reception" or something.

Love,
Donny and Diana