The doctor thinks I speak great Spanish.

Above: Doctor's orders!

So, it looks like the dangers of Colombia might have caught up with us after all. Last summer, it was the attack of traveler's diarrhea, but this year? DENGUE!

Dengue is a lovely virus that is spread by mosquitoes, those ubiquitous little bundles of joy. As I mentioned a few posts ago, dengue is currently making it's way through our area. The mosquitoes carrying dengue breed in stagnant water... or, as we recently discovered, on wet shower floors or toilet tanks. Yeah... we've got some lovely dengue-carrying mosquitoes right in our own apartment! Basically, they're more fun than our other house guests, the Cockroach family, that took up residence here before we moved in.

The virus itself is super fun. There are two main strains of it: one that is like the flu + diarrhea (dengue classico) and another one that causes a rash and hemorrhages. Sounds like a party, si?

My first dengue-inflicted student caught it last weekend. Warren had a student absent with dengue this week, too.

The real fun, though, started today. Warren complained all day about feeling sore and having a headache. He also enjoyed symptoms similar to the ones that put me in Urgent Care last summer... and this afternoon, after sleeping for two solid hours, he woke up with a fever of 100 degrees F. That's when I stepped in.

After making some phone calls, I scheduled a visit from SER. SER is this AWESOME emergency medical service that people with money use in Colombia. Basically, a doctor and a nurse come to your house and treat you. (That's right: in Colombia, the doctors make house calls.) Within an hour, a lovely doctor and her nurse were taking Warren's temperature and checking his arms for spots. Unfortunately, they diagnosed him with a possible case of dengue. They are coming back tomorrow morning to give him a blood test to be sure. Even if he doesn't have it, he isn't going to be teaching tomorrow. The doctor demanded that he rest for at least 5 days. She also prescribed Tylenol (Dolex, in Colombia) and Pedialyte. Another awesome Colombian service: pharmacies deliver. The lovely doctor even called the pharmacy for us.

The upside to all of this? I used a lot of Spanish tonight, and the doctor eventually started talking to ME in Spanish instead of Warren because she thought I understood and spoke more than he did!! (Happy dance!)

The downside: Well, obviously it will stink if Warren actually has dengue, especially since this is a three-day weekend... but the real downside for me is that I have to sub for him tomorrow. While teaching my own classes. Yep... I get to teach 37 fourth and fifth graders tomorrow. How do you say "chaos" in Spanish?