Dysentery

I recently got some friendly advice from a frequent traveler to Nepal: don't touch anything.

...Without immediately cleansing my hands with purell. He told me that whatever else I do, I should under no circumstances touch my face or I will get sick. Great.

That was yesterday and all last night I was trying to be conscious of what my hands are doing. I figure if I can make no-face-touching a habit now, I should be OK when I get to Nepal. But my hands seem to move all on their own with no thought at all from me. I didn't give them permission to rub my eye, but there they are, creeping their sinister way to my face against my will.

I signed up for a "Ground Fighting Tactics" class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. It's really fun (the I like to get my butt kicked and be sore for two days afterwards kind of fun)and last night was my second class. It's at a jujitsu dojo and I think I'll keep going there after the class is over. I really like the Sensei and the other people there. Even the girl who popped me in the nose. My first class I came away with finger-tip shaped bruises on my bicep, red, swollen knees, and mat burn on the tops of my feet. Last night I jammed my big toe into the wall (thankfully it's a mat-covered wall) and got thwacked in the nose. I was grappling with a girl who told me she's got a black belt in Tae-Kwando. That's a martial art that involves a lot of kicking. I think she was upset to be confined to her knees (since it's a ground fighting class we start everything from our knees). In retaliation, she popped me in the nose with the back of her hand. My chin was tucked, but she slinked her little hand down below my face and BAM! Got me. My eyes teared and I was saved from having to whup her butt in response when the Sensei yelled, "Switch partners!" Despite my whining about bruises and stuff, "Ground Fighting Tactics" has got nothing on Officer Response Tactics at FLETC. I had such fantastic bruising, I felt the need to take a picture. But I digress...

Almost 24 hours later, my nose still hurts. Why? Because I keep touching it. I rub the sides of it, the top of it by my eyes, the end of it... I can't escape. If it wasn't painful I wouldn't even realize what I'm doing! How on earth am I going to survive Nepal?

I looked up dysentery on Wikipedia. Not only do the immediate affects sound horrendously inconvenient, but I could come away with a permanent lactose intolerance! It could change me into someone who can't eat ice cream! Or drink milk. Or CHEESE!!!! NO!! I must eat cheese! How could I live without gouda, cheddar, provolone, and creamy havarti?

Here's what Wikipedia says:

Dysentery (formerly known as flux or the bloodie flux) is frequent, small-volume, severe diarrhea that shows blood in the feces along with intestinal cramping and tenesmus (painful straining to pass stool).[1] Additional symptoms frequently associated with dysentery include fever and malaise.

Symptoms include frequent passage of feces/stool, loose motion and in some cases associated vomiting. Variations depending on parasites can be frequent urge with high or low volume of stool, with or without some associated mucus and even blood.
A long term complication of amoebic dysentery is lactose intolerance to dairy products, which usually lasts a few weeks but occasionally may be permanent.

Besides the slight chance of transforming into a wan, pale, non-cheese consuming shadow of myself, the consequences of coming down with dysentery in Nepal could be quit severe. I have hiking to do. There aren't going to be convenient places to crap every 50 feet in the Himalayas. My tour packet says that we have to be in shape enough that we can hike 10 miles a day. How can someone hike any miles a day with severe diarrhea? Will I be left behind? Fodder for the... I don't think there are any large predators in the areas where I'm hiking, but maybe the snow leopards will come down for a sickly white meat snack. Or if I'm beset with dysentery while I'm on elephant back in Royal Chitwan National Park maybe I'll be left behind and the tigers will eat me. Weakened from dehydration I don't think I'd put up much of a fight.

Or will they throw my limp near-corpse on the back of an overloaded Sherpa? Will they drag me with the group or leave me along the side of the trail like the big chest that bogged down the oxen as the covered wagons moved west? Will my abandoned skeleton be added to the somber collection of other dysentery-stricken westerners who weren't able to keep up? Will Montezuma's revenge be my fate?

My only chance is Purell. Lots and lots of Purell.