hardened feet that can walk easily on hot
blacktop, rocks, sharp gravel, and even coals.
No matter how many bags of IV were
in me, or how much water I drank, I was
dehydrating, and molting skin off my hands,
feet, legs and face like a snake. My lips were
chapping, cracking apart and falling off every
day, leaving another black layer to fall off
and cracks of blood that would run down
my chin. The bad leg had all of its skin fall
off on day four, looking dead and brown and
taking pores and most of the leg hair with
it. As I sweat from fever every night and wet
sheets pruned my hands and feet, I was able
to peel the layers off them together in single
pieces. Literally heel to toes in one piece.
This in itself was upsetting because I have
walked barefoot for years to build up strong
Beyond this, I had high fever temperatures, flu
like symptoms of vomiting and stomachaches
with a bluish complexion, and constant nose
bleeds from dried out capillaries. And the
most embarrassing things were my lack of
control of bodily functions. I couldn’t contain
peeing out the Iv liquid every half hour and
they don’t have Gatorade, pedialyte or
anything with electrolytes to keep your water
in and hydrate you. This would cause the
chapped lips, sore throat, hardened tongue,
dry mouth and it made it painful to talk on the
phone with loved ones I wanted to talk to. I
don’t think some of them quite understood
how bad this hurt physically and emotionally.
I wanted to talk for a while and tried to for
an hour sometimes but my lips would be
bleeding and although its less personal
texting was much easier. This made me feel
pretty lousy though because I didn’t want
to come off short to them and I wanted to
talk for some kind of company, but couldn’t.
The other horrible part was that although I
was eating no solid foods, the flu symptoms
made me do some disgusting things in my
bed that were just humiliating to see happen.
I’d deal with the pain of getting out of bed
long enough to go shower and let nurses
clean and change my sheets and come back
feeling worthless.
Finally, venom and extreme fever cause
horrifying hallucinations. I already could
not sleep through a single night and relied
on several naps through the day, but every
night when I’d dose off, I’d have the worst
lucid dreams or hallucinations I’ve ever
experienced. It started the second day when
I thought I had a bunch of my teammates
come visit me and stay until late at night to
keep me company. The nurse asked me how
I slept and I said poorly but it was nice to have
company. She said no one had come to see