The Malaria I Know is Better Than the Flu I do Not Know

DISCLAIMER: This write-up is likely to be full of fallacies, prejudices and may seem illogical. It is the ramblings of an emotional female in recovery who recently became aware of the injustice perpetuated at her home-grown illness

As I write this, I struggle to type on my keyboard because my limbs feel lifeless and dead. I’ve been down with the flu for four days. The worst is over but I still feel like I have been trampled upon by elephants and a hippopotamuses chasing each other (had to recite the nursery thyme to spell hippopotamus).

With no iota of pride, but with utmost gratitude to God, I’m one of the healthiest people on planet earth. I can count on my right palm, the number of times I have visited a doctor for diagnosis and I have never in my life been admitted into a hospital. *Knock on wood*

On a good day I would not write about my illness but the circumstances of my new found discovery demands that I speak out against the prejudice and bias against poor innocent malaria* and I  feel so wronged! There has been so much injustice meted out at malaria and I simply cannot fathom why! Why on earth should a patient be quarantined for Malaria which even doctors acknowledge is not contagious and patients with Flu which is as contagious as yawning (you just yawned right?) are allowed to roam the streets and spread the disease? Anyway, not like I would have enjoyed being quarantined for flu, I just think its unjust to make all that unnecessary hullabaloo over poor, harmless malaria.

As a Nigerian, I have had my fair share of malaria, but never have I felt as ill as I did these past few days. With malaria, I just need to pop whatever “reigning” pills the anopheles mosquito and its trypanosomiasis  secretion (I remember my biology) is yet to develop a resistance to and life goes on as usual. Yes the slight headache and heightened fever here and there but with little weakness, in fact most times, I “manage” to go around my day to day business.

But this flu, kai, this flu!!! It is another thing entirely. As you know, I do not have a high pitched voice, I’m quite soft- spoken, but that soft spoken “sweet-sounding”  voice went a million and one decibels lower all because of this flu, “as in” I could not say nada; then my body temperature, that was another story entirely – you could boil yam on my body;  the headache – I’ve never experienced that type before! All my life, the headache I know happens on your forehead, this one was at the back of my head, between my right ear and the middle of my head (mi o ri iru e ri l’aye mi!). Then the weakness – that one is yet to leave my body and sleep, kai, sleep, sweet sleep – totally eluded me and I was unable to do anything else so I just laid on my bed and stared at my blank, uninteresting ceiling and wall.

Anyway, I’m totally grateful to God almighty that I can type this now, my strength is gradually returning and I know I’ll be back as new ASAP. However I DEMAND that there should be a reversal on the unfair treatment currently meted out at malaria and malaria patients by the white man. In fact, appropriate restitution needs to made ASAP!

I warned you! This was not supposed to make much sense :)

*In this write up, malaria is limited to the Nigerian malaria which I know for sure is easily curable and not other strains of malaria which I know nothing about.