Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to pay for extra seats. So I decided to stay in Madagascar for treatment. The infec-
tion was already creeping up the leg and an enormous sausage-like blood blister now
spanned the whole length of the foot. The first doctor that saw me at the clinic where
Iwastakenwassofascinated bythesightthatthefirstthinghedidwastotakeouthis
mobile phone to take pictures! I was given a bed in a room on my own. Everything
was wonderfully clean and new. The following day an old, greying doctor performed
an operation under local anaesthetic to remove the worst infected tissue. He told me
that he'd studied neo-natal surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Despite large doses of intravenous antibiotics the infection spread up as far as my
knee and it was four or five days before it showed signs of receding. Meanwhile
the big blood blister had burst, dried and formed a large scab which the doctor now
wanted to remove (under general anaesthetic) because it was sealing in the infected
tissue underneath. I became scared, both about having an open wound covering half
my foot, as well as the expense of the operation, and decided to risk the flight back to
Paris. I had spent a week in hospital, at the end of which the infection had been suc-
cessfully driven down and confined to the foot and my body temperature was brought
down to normal. I paid only about £200.
The people looking after me all this time were a Slovenian missionary priest, a
French nun who took care of my expiring visa and I'm especially grateful to the pa-
rishioners of another Slovenian missionary, Père Pedro, who took me to this hospital
and provided me with a guarde (a personal carer, as is normal practice in Malagasy
hospitals). The parishioners visited me every day with food and drink. Unfortunately
I couldn't eat anything, not even the hospital dinners which looked wonderful. The
nurses, in an effort to get me to eat, were even so kind as to ask me what I liked and,
being fed up with rice, I said mashed potatoes. I felt ashamed when I couldn't eat
them. I think the doctors and nurses were rather disappointed that I decided to go. Be-
fore I was discharged the nurses took pains over my dressing saying: 'We don't want
people to think we're under-developed'! The awful treatment I was later to get from
the vazahas at Charles de Gaulle airport where I waited three hours for a wheelchair
made me wonder who was the more developed.
At the end the parishioners took me to the airport in their Land Rover ambulance.
I lay on the stretcher in the back and there were children on both sides singing all the
way there. It had been worth staying in Madagascar just for that experience!
Hot drinks and iced drinks cause a reflex emptying of the bowel and cause bellyache,
so take drinks tepid or at room-temperature while the diarrhoea is at its worst. Once the
bowel has ejected the toxic material causing the diarrhoea, the symptoms will settle quite
quickly and you should begin to feel better again after 24-36 hours. Should the diarrhoea
 
 
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