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The Malaria

fiction

By sissytishaPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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I have to send malaria once a year, from elementary school to high school, all year long, and there is a quasi-season. Every year when the peaches come in, it's almost here, wait for it.

A young writer asked Ehrenberg, "What does it feel like to have a headache?" He wanted to write about a man with a headache in his novel. Ehrenberg said, "So you've never had a headache, then you're really happy! There's no way to tell what a headache feels like." Many people in China (especially in the north) have never had malaria. If a young writer asks me to describe what it feels like to have malaria, there is nothing I can do. It starts with a chill... Here it comes! The Grand Master has risen - we call the beginning of a malaria attack "the Grand Master has risen" there, I don't know why. I don't know why, but I had to get under the blanket, it was cold! After covering two thick blankets, I was still cold, so cold that my teeth rattled. After the cold, I got hot, my body was burning, and I had a severe headache. There is a song about malaria: "When it's cold, it's like sitting on ice, when it's hot, it's like lying in a steamer, when it hurts, it hurts so much that the sky is broken, God, God, it's like this kind of cold coming and going!" Anyway, it's not a good feeling. It's okay! Sweating! Dripping with sweat, wet underwear, relaxed all over the body, malaria passed, "the great lord retired from the hall". Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I was hungry! Sitting up, the congee was ready, just a dish of sweet sauce cucumber, drink the congee, fragrant!

Du Mu's poem says: "You can be happy when you have endured things." For malaria, there is only one way to endure it. I had a few doses of medicine (plus or minus Xiao Chai Hu Tang and so on), but it didn't matter. After 3 episodes, I still took "blue seal cinchona cream" (i.e. quinine tablets) to solve the problem. My father said I was Yin deficiency, so one year he let me eat some sea cucumber. It was good to eat sea cucumber every day! But it still didn't break the root of the disease. It wasn't until 1939 when I had a case of falciparum malaria that the "old, old Plasmodium" inside my body said goodbye to me for good.

The falciparum malaria was acquired in Vietnam. I took a boat from Shanghai to Hanoi via Hong Kong, and then took a train to Kunming to go to university. When I arrived in Kunming, I lived in a student dormitory at Tongji High School. After staying there for a few days, I fell ill. The student from Tongji High School took me to their school infirmary and had my blood tested. The school doctor said I had several kinds of germs in my blood, including typhoid and other germs, and told me to get to the hospital.

When I arrived at the hospital, the nurse took my temperature and it was over 40 degrees Celsius. Without saying a word, the nurse gave me a shot of heartburn first. I asked, "Should I write a suicide note?"

The nurse smiled sweetly: "It's okay, I'm afraid you're burning too much, people can't stand it!"

Blood was drawn and tests were performed.

The doctor read the test results and said there were multiple germs lurking, but the main problem was falciparum malaria. An injection of medicine was prescribed. After a while, the nurse brought the injection. I asked, "What kind of injection is it?"

"606."

I hastened to declare that what I had was definitely not syphilis, I had never ......

"This is a special medicine for falciparum malaria. Quinine, adiponectin, doesn't work for you anymore."

606 and Plasmodium, typhoid, and who knows what else, mingled in my veins, and 606 won in the end. The disease subsided, but I was "at a disadvantage" because the doctor prescribed that I could only eat lotus root powder. How can this be considered a "meal"? I was extremely unimpressed with the root powder in the hospital and have not eaten it at home since. Later, I was allowed to drink egg flower soup, but egg flower soup cannot be considered as rice!

I asked to be discharged from the hospital, but the doctor wouldn't let me. I got anxious and said, "I came to Kunming to take the university entrance exams, and tomorrow is the exam period, how can I be discharged?"

The doctor agreed.

I drank a lot of egg soup and went into the examination room dizzy. God forbid, I got in!

Since I had a bout of falciparum malaria, my malaria has not recurred for more than half a century. It's strange.

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