Anti-malarial Entertainment

There are two main options for anti-malarial medication. Doxycycline is relatively inexpensive, but has the unfortunate side effect of making one extremely sensitive to the sun. Malarone (just auto-corrected to "macaroni" ... yum, I wish) is significantly more expensive but instead of the sunburn potential, only threatens a much more vague possible "weird dream" side effect. 

My health insurance covered three months of Malarone for free, and my blue eyes already make me an unfortunate definite losing contender against the African sun. I opted for the macaroni. I mean Malarone. 

Strong medications have never had a huge effect on me. The Percocet prescribed for my wisdom teeth extraction left me still crying in pain for several days following the procedure. I've been known to spend nights wide awake after desperately taking Ambien for my insomnia. I took a Xanax as I boarded my flight from New York to Istabul en route to Ghana, but still cried secretly in a panic, convinced the whale of a plane would definitely not get from one continent to the next without plunging into the Atlantic.

(I realize I've just made a very good case for myself as some kind of prescription drug junkie. I promise this is not the case.)

Anyways, the point is that I didn't think the weird dreams from the Malarone would be an issue for me. 

I don't know what constitutes a "weird" dream, as my dreams are usually not realistic in the first place. But I have lots of dreams here starring people I haven't seen in years. Ive noticed that many of the male cameos have really big beards, when in real life I've never seen them with facial hair. Last night I vivdly dreamt I sat on the floor of Safeway's bakery section eating chocolate chips with two volleyball teammates I haven't actually seen since college.

The dreams are just the tip of the iceberg. A little background about my sleeping. I have, on a few occasions, contributed to full conversations at night that I have no recollection of the following morning. More often though, I bolt upright with a startled gasp that scares anyone in the room or nearby. My roommate in Seattle tells me some mornings, "I heard you freak out again last night" to which I bewilderdly shrug, generally having no recollection. 

My mom (sorry mom! For the blog's sake!) also wakes with these night terrors, but to a more intense degree. I remember tiptoeing into my parents bedroom after having a nightmare as a child, whispering "Mom?" and her sitting up and screaming bloody murder, startled out of her sleep, and scarring me for life. My grandpa apparently did the same thing. So these night terrors sort of already run in my family, but are rare for me, usually happening once every few months.

Until Malarone.

In Ghana I pull the terrified gasp at least once every night, according to my now-immune roommate. Sometimes I wake myself up, sometimes I don't. 

One night last week I awoke on my feet, absolutely convinced the house was burning down. The air outside smelled differently than normal due to a recent rain, and my sleep stupor translated the smell to that of smoke. I sleep with an eye mask on to block out the floodlight outside my window, and when I ripped it off and had momentary blurry vision, I thought it was smoke in the room. My roommate Sarah spent five minutes trying to convince me there was no fire, until I finally just nodded in submission, crawled back into bed, and promptly fell asleep for the remainder of the night. 

At least I'm protected against malaria?

That's all I've got. No life lesson in this post. But it was too amusingly self-deprecating to not enlighten you with. Enjoy.