For you're an all night generator wrapped in stockings and a dress
When you find your medicine you take what you can get
'Cause if there's something better baby well they haven't found it yet
Your love is like bad medicine
Bad medicine is what I need
Shake it up, just like bad medicine
There ain't no doctor that can cure my disease" - Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
Tonight a kiwi volunteer is catching
an Air NZ flight home after scoring a personal best, 9.5 for a face first
forward dive from a seated position...she deserved a medal, but didn't get one.
Unfortunately the poor lady wasn't
competing in the Commonwealth Youth Games currently taking place in Apia- she
was just riding her bike home from a coffee...She woke up hours later in
hospital with no recollection of the accident, a serious number of teeth deeply
relocated, and lips like that sexy female saxophone player from the muppets...
Naturally, I sympathise deeply.
After we visited her at the hospital-
we started to do a quick 'medivac' count of the accidents, injuries and
evacuations among the 8 or 10 VSA volunteers usually in country...In just the
last 10 months- there have been some interesting medical issues requiring
evacuation.
Like the horticultural volunteer who
developed a leg infection from a pinprick in her foot- that resulted in the leg
blowing up to twice it's size, and the skin beginning to die off. Over a week,
her lower leg went from weird, swollen purple rash, to areas turning pitch
black suspiciously like frostbite, while a postule the size of a tea light
candle on her ankle threatened to disgorge a small alien. Since being
evacuated, unfortunately, insurers have refused to let her return to Samoa to complete her assignment.
Then there was the all round good
bloke, who fell in love online - not an injury in itself- but it cut short his
assignment by several months under what can only be called conditions of severe
emotional blackmail. To add injury to insult, he was only a week from returning
home when a second disaster struck. Empty beer bottles are routinely kept, for
cash-back recycling- but this bloke had a stash that was worth a months salary,
stacked neatly about his fridge. Unfortunately, on going to grab a coldie
toward the end of a night of drinking, he lost his balance and sat down, hard,
in the middle of his trophy collection, tearing himself a new orifice just
north of the pre-existing one. He went home with some detailed souvenir needle
work which you can't pick up in the craft markets.
Or the woman admitted to the hospital
suffering pneumonia, who was later found by visitors wrapped shivering in a
curtain, against the polar hospital air con. She discovered that in-patients
here are expected to provide their own bedding and food.
Another young volunteer picked up a
uterine parasite- about which little could be done, other than to return home
and wait roughly 9 months for it to appear and gurgle at her. She's expected to
recover fully in about 20 years.
One lady, who referred to herself as a
bit “high maintenance”- required insurance to organise return flights to NZ and
a few weeks off to have a small but “sus looking” mole removed from her leg.
She departed permanently, less than 6 months into a 2 year assignment.
Even small injuries can present a
considerable threat. Another volunteer has a small, angry cut on his leg that's
going on 3 months old, and which resists healing despite a range of
antibacterial ointments and several courses of oral antibiotics. Some medicines
just seem to annoy it. I wonder if maybe his adversarial approach is the
problem... he may be better off just playing it some classical music and
talking to it softly.
On top of all of that- every body
suffers occasionally from dog bites, rashes, stomach bugs and an innumerable
range of fevers caused by influenza, chikungunya, or dengue- few of which are
officially diagnosed, just because there's lot of point in talking to a doctor
to get more of the ubiquitously prescribed paracetamol. So far, from my
extensive and awesome medical kit, I've used all of the antibiotics, betadine,
a bottle of neurafen, a pack or two of panadol, antihistamines, cold and flu
tabs and other assorted bits.
What's left in the kit appears to be
for near death experiences...
It's little wonder that we recently
received an email notifying that the personal insurance cost for volunteers has
been increased.
