Whirlwind

This week was a little crazy.  I "planned" an oral exam for my embassy program class Tuesday night  for their Wednesday morning test.  That was a little stressful.  I figured that the test would take a little longer than the normal 2 hour class because we would be giving the oral exam to each of the 24 students individually and my counterpart wanted me to ask the questions and I wanted him to write down the students' responses.  Well, I got to the school at 7:30am, we started the exams at 8am, and didn't finish them until 12:30pm!  4 and 1/2 hours asking questions in English and listening to students respond, without a break...yikes!  I was exhausted!  Little did I know, I was not done.  I followed my counterpart into another classroom where all the students had gathered and yelled "Happy Birthday!" to me.  They had decorated the classroom, bought pizza, juice, a cake, and a pinata to celebrate my birthday.  What an awesome surprise!  I have never had a surprise party before and this was just great :) 

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but my counterpart had his so I'll be getting those pictures soon and I'll attach the link to my Facebook page so you can see them.  The kids were so excited which made this event so much more enjoyable.  The pinata they picked out was a three foot Cinderella and they said they chose that one because it looked the most like me with light hair and blue eyes hahaha  They crack me up!  Anyway, this was so wonderful and they even sent me home with tons of extra pizza and cake :)

A couple hours before the party, in the middle of testing, I got a text from Frank telling me he was in the hospital in Dario on an IV and not to call him because he couldn't answer.  This freaked me out a bit and I tried calling, but of course he didn't answer.  This made it difficult to enjoy the party because of the mixed emotions and the unknown.  I tried calling other people and couldn't figure out how to get ahold of him so I texted him that I was going to Dario to see him.  I rushed home, packed in a flash, ran up to the bus terminal and got on the next bus headed his way.  I got a little teary eyed waiting for the bus as I kept thinking about him and what could be wrong and felt frustrated not being able to talk to him.  On the bus, one of his sitemates, Max, called me and asked me if I knew what was going on because his other sitemate, Gabe, had called him that morning telling him that he took Frank to the hospital and was worried about him but then Max couldn't get ahold of Frank.  I asked him to send me Gabe's number and I started getting teary eyed again just talking about things... I guess you could say I was a mess.  Not knowing what was going on and not being able to talk to Frank and then having to wait 2 1/2 hours to get there. Ugh!  I called Gabe and he was in Managua because he was leaving for the States but he did tell me he took Frank to the hospital/health center that morning and he wasn't really able to walk around or move him arms and had been really dehydrated so they put him on an IV.  He was still in the hospital when Gabe left.  It was good to hear something, but the news still wasn't comforting.  I called Max again and asked him to go to Frank's house to see if he was there or if his family knew anything.  Max called back 30 minutes later and said he wasn't home, but his family was planning on going to visit him.  Between then, I had called the PC office to get Frank's house number to call someone in his family to tell them I was coming, but the number I called was a family member who was at work, not at home :( 

When I was about half way to Frank's house, Frank finally called me.  He sounded alright, but said that he was exhausted and couldn't really move his arms and was lying down at home.  I told him I was on my way.  I was so relieved to finally hear from him but I was so anxious to see him. 

I finally reached Dario 7 hours after getting the original text message from Frank.  He was lying in bed and looked so sad.  He had gotten a lot of tests done and found out that on top of being dehydrated and having inflamed muscles, he had a bacteria infection and parasites.  Not fun. 

Needless to say, the sad little puppy dog look on his face convinced me to stay through the weekend.  I took care of my man and I think I should be well on my way to becoming a certified nurse ;)  Frank was feeling much better when I left today but was still taking his medicine to get rid of the bacteria and parasites.  Apparently there are a lot of these things going around right now.  Hope he gets back to feeling 100% soon!

So, this past week has been a whirlwind of events.  I don't know where July went, but I know there wasn't much school.  I'll be starting off August with a trip to the health center tomorrow because I have some, what I think is, swollen lymph nodes, which could be caused by an infection and/or stress.  I certainly have had enough stress this week so let's just hope it's that :)