Imported item 228

Sunny with a chance of Zika

When a local Honduran doctor tells you that you "100 percent have Zika", how do you respond? You freak out! Right?!?

Here's what I knew about Zika at the time: not much. I knew the rest of the world was calling it a global epidemic but I had only seen the front of foreign newspapers and used my mediocre Spanish to de-code that it was associated with major birth defects.

Let's rewind. I had been travelling through South and Central America with my sisters for 4 months before going to volunteer at medical clinics in rural Honduras when I woke up, looked in the mirror, and thought "something is not right, I look like a monster". I was covered head to toe in a rash. And I mean raaaaash. To add to my fear, the Canadian medical team around me couldn't identify what was happening to my body. But it took just five minutes for one Honduran doctor to diagnose me and reassure me that everything was going to be okay (as long as I didn't have a baby for 8 weeks)...

- Kalyn