How do I feel?

Woozy. Head is not really aching. No sneezing. A slight fever, at least, I have to be in a jumper, though the sun is out and it is about two hours to noon. And it is bright.

Must be malaria. That is what we always think. Took me some time to realise that what I think of as malaria is a fever. A rise in temperature. And that there are other things which can cause it, apart from the most common malaria parasites.

Ok.

So, I may have malaria. Have I gone to the clinic?

Why should I? I mean, I do not feel so bad. The headache is not there, the fever fluctuates from highs to lows, but it is not too bad. When it is bad and I am in bed, I always curl right into my lover. Poor guy, he sometimes tells me that I am burning him. Roasting him in his own bed.

He does the same when he has a bout of malaria, anyway.

Anyway, of seeing a doctor to get treatment? There is the question of how sick I am feeling, which is not much, how long it will last, which I hope is not long, and whether I will like the pin prick done, and to swallow those bitter medicines. They are always bitter, even when they are not.

There is always a threshold. How sick I will feel, before I get to seeing a doctor about it. Hopefully, a couple of aspirins, a couple of days and I will be feeling fine. Once I was with a guy who had come from Canada, and he listened to me talking of a bout of malaria. He was horrified. To him it is a killer disease. It seemed as if I was treating it like a minor ‘flu’. His words.

But I am supposed to be immune. Doesn’t treat me as bad as a person who has never had it.

Oh, malaria is a killer. Kills thousands a year, especially children. As an adult I can also get the more severe forms, and be killed by it. But I have been getting attacks since I was born. The contempt of the familiar conforts me. This ogre, I know it.

So I will wait until I feel bad enough to stand the pinprick to diagnose it, and then I will take the drugs and I will be right as rain.

Hopefully.

GayUganda