Wed Part Three...The Plague....

For me, an early victim, it hit during evening chanting. At the first bow, the mixture of incense and tummy problems, my stomach lurched and I knew that something was wrong. I made it through the whole ceremony, but when we got back to the room and three others were not feeling good, I balled up on the floor to try to sleep it off.

The jury is still out on the cause (dehydration, exhaustion, jet lag, altitude, lack of sleep, or just plain food poisoning) but whatever it was it got us all. 20 of the 27 were down and out within six hours. The entire large middle room of our building was covered with pallets, buckets, wet cloths for the sick. Our premed students Beth and Sana led by EMT Allon were running to and fro nursing everyone and keeping people hydrated and warm.

The monks did acupuncture on some people that wanted it. They would hit pressure points to help your body expel the bad things or try to reroute your circulation to stimulate healing. I passed on the needles, but i definitely heard when others were having it done. We slept intermittently and finally Dr. Yi made the executive decision that we would not take our fallen troops to the male monastery tomorrow. My sickness subsided by about midnight (after about six to eight hours) but others were just falling victim to the plague, so I joined the ranks of nurses and helped with the others.