by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Super Adventure Life
The flight was long..I wasn’t really able to get much sleep…I don’t think I slept very much for a week actually.
But I finally landed and caught a cab to my mom’s place. My mom was very happy to see me and I was glad to be with her.
When I was at the airport a man mentioned that I should look up someone in Chicago that treats this sort of thing. Chicago is a major place for many things, someone has to know about it. I looked on line and found a specialist who is the director of the Rush Hospital Infectious Disease Center.
I called the next day and got an appointment the next day. The doctor called me back actually which I found really amazing. He was very nice and interested in my case.
My mom and I drove into the city the next day and the doctor confirmed that it was indeed Leish, but we had to get it tested and the next appointment for testing was in a week. He took a picture of it and sent me on my way.
That night my mom started to complain of pains on her side. She said that she might need to go to the hospital so we called the ambulance. That night she was admitted into the hospital.
For the next few days they ran test after test and in the end they sent her home because they just weren’t sure what the problem was.
Everyday I was holding space for my mom and also for Rob who has to take a bus and a train everyday round trip 3 hours to get his treatment. It’s been hard being away from Rob during all of this. I get emotional and sad and it’s not helpful for him…
My mom is home now, feeling better and we are working on a healthy way of eating and living.
Rob has 8 more days of treatment and is feeling tired.
I got tested last week and I find out what species of Leish I have on Thursday. My lesion is healing, which could be a good thing or not depending on what type of Leish I have. Basically if I have Mexicana it will heal on it’s own and I won’t need treatment and if I have Braziliana then I will need treatment. Rob has been getting treatment for it even though they don’t know what kind he has, but in America the CDC won’t release the medication unless the result comes back positive for the Brazillian species.
I have been up and down and have been very thankful for the love and support of all of my friends and family and Rob’s friends and family. I feel like we are supported and loved by so many.
Now all I have to do is start taking care of myself…It’s been easy to put all of my love and focus into Rob and my mom, but now it is time to turn within and start my own healing process….
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
This air flight was non-eventful and long, we watched movies and slept.
When it came time to go to Customs the agent asked me what I was doing in London and I told him the truth. I got shuffled through and asked a whole lot more questions and basically they decided that because I did not have the right visa they did not want to allow me entrance into the UK.
The thing is…you don’t need a visa if you are from the US. Basically they didn’t want me to get treatment at the Tropical Disease Hospital because I am not a British National. They said if I applied for a visa, and proved I would have enough money to pay for treatmentand accommodation then they would let me back in.
They were nice enough to let me spend the night with Rob at his mom’s house and then get on a plane to Chicago to my mom’s house the next morning.
It was a beautiful night with Rob…I wanted to remember everything about him and hold him all night long…
When the morning came we got ready and his mom and he dropped me off at the airport. I felt like we were just going to be away from each other for a short time and this wasn’t a forever good bye, just a for a little while…
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
The next day we caught a boat to Belize city.
We found a clean and safe place to stay and worked on finding our next destination. I found a Russian family on a farm outside of Belize city that was looking for volunteers. We got the address and the next day we were on a bus to the farm.
They had lived on the farm for about 2 years, but the place itself was very rustic. Very little running water and no sinks. We did have an inside sleeping space that we shared with a very bossy and demanding 12 year old. It seems his Mom left him there with this family for a couple of months while she went back to Russia with her new husband…
We were glad to have a bed, but when we started to get itchy we found out that our bed was covered in tiny little ants. These ants we found out are more like mites and they leave their saliva on your skin and it causes an itch that stays with you for weeks…
Each day we would wake up and do what ever we could to help on the farm. Rob was great at using his machete to chop down tall grasses and clear the land. I would help out with digging up potatoes and cleaning up. Each day was very hot and tiring, but Rob was glad to be working the land and I was glad to be there with him doing what I could.
The rules of Woofing is that you work for food and lodging, but the family didn’t really want to feed us…so we had to go into town to get food and that was a big struggle in and of itself. We had to hitch hike in and then take a long bus ride and then be there in town, which is dirty, loud and stressful…by the time we got back we would be very tired.
One day we were hitching into town and we got picked up by this man who said that he was looking for people to help him at his resort that his wife and he run. We told him we could help him and he was over joyed. We got his number and scheduled to come the next day.
We said good bye to our Russian family and we were on our way to our new destination.
