¡Hola familia!

How’s life? Hot apparently. Look on the bright side, it could be worse…could be raining…and none of you are sick with Dengue or anything like that. Speaking of which, I have Dengue. Wow. Do you like that smooth transition I just used to subtly break the news about my life threatening, incurable infirmity? Yeah, I thought it was pretty slick too. So want to hear how it went down? Gather ´round and I shall tell you my tale of woe and high fevers.

It all started last Monday when I developed a fever and started feeling a little under the weather. I didn’t want to say anything to you guys at the time because I didn’t know what I had and I didn’t want you guys to worry. Tuesday I woke up feeling very not good so I called sister Gamboa and she told me to take a sick day. That’s pretty much all there is to say about Tuesday because I was asleep the rest of the day after that, sporting a healthy 102.5 fever. Wednesday I woke up feeling just as pleasant with the same exact fever and all, so I called sister Gamboa again and she sent me to a doctor in Manta. The doctor took my pulse, looked in my throat for about 2 seconds, and told me I had a throat infection. Idiot. My throat wasn’t even bothering me. At that point I figured it was the pig flu or Dengue but I just took the drugs he gave me and left. They were kind enough to give me a shot that knocked my fever down for about 12 hours so that was nice. Apart from the whole “shot” part (man I hate shots). Thursday I still felt sick but after doing nothing in three days I was going stir crazy so we went to work anyway. It was an odd day for me because my legs felt like they were made of Jell-O, you know, like when you work out for a long time and you muscles are exhausted. Plus, I was sort of dizzy and nauseous. I really didn’t eat much this week and I think I lost like 10 or 15 pounds. On the bright side, we did get another baptismal date that day. Friday I was sick, again. So we spent the day in the house, again. And I slept all day, again. And thus ended Friday. Saturday we called sister Gamboa because I clearly did not have a throat thing going on. She sent me back to Manta. This time I saw a different doctor and he said “I think you have Dengue.” I concurred. Fast forward one hour and I’m in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm and a confirmed case of Dengue. Hate needles and I always thought to myself, “If I’m ever in a hospital and someone tries to stick an IV in my arm, I’m saying no”. And guess what? That’s exactly what I did. It took them 10 minutes to convince me that an IV was worth my time. In the end I finally had to submit. As it turns out, it was exactly as unpleasant as I imagined. And just to rub it in, they took a blood sample. I think they took my blood 7 times in the last couple days. Jerks. One of the things they were worried about was my platelet count. The doctor said that normal is 150,000 but mine was only about 115,000. I don’t know much about medical stuff so I have no idea if that’s a big deal or not but that’s what they told me. The most interesting thing is that the doctor told me this was not my first run in with Dengue. Apparently there are markers left in the blood once you have had Dengue and he says I have those markers. I’m guessing that when I thought I had the flu around New Years, back in Babahoyo, that was Dengue.

[Show as slideshow]

So I’m definitely going to want to avoid getting Dengue again. It’s funny because there are not very many mosquitoes here, hardly anybody gets Dengue around here but I’m just that lucky. I got released from the hospital today at about 3 pm and we hopped a bus back home to Jipijapa. So that’s my story. Pretty wild huh?

As far as transfers go, I did not get transferred. Neither did Elder Ruiz. I hear that Elder hall from by MTC district got transferred in though. And Elder Luther is training. There were 22 newbies by the way. I got one of mom’s packages as well but I think it was robbed. On the box it says that it had food and ties in it but in the package there were a couple ensigns, a couple of hymn books, the art book I asked for, and a hilarious graduation card from Nathan. The pictures on that card were all classic Nathan, as soon as I saw it I busted up.

I think you should know that I heard about Michael Jackson the very afternoon that he died. That was pretty big news here. I was blown away that news of his death would get all the way down to me here in Ecuador within hours of it happening but there you go. I should probably write more but I really don’t have much to say. This probably wasn’t my most uplifting letter ever. For the record, I’m fine now. I’m still a little sick and confined to the house for the next couple days, but other than that I’m doing much better. I think I may recover, in fact, I think I’ll go for a walk. Or maybe I’ll just take a nap. So anyway have a good day, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Have a good 4th of July and I will talk to you next week. Next time I talk to you, I’ll be 20. Weird.

Te quiero,

Elder Walke