Newsletter

Scott's email about his responsibilities: 

Hello!  How are things back home?  I wanted to get in touch with you

and update you on how things have gone this first month and a half

I've been here in Madagascar. You might remember that I came to fill

a position as a teacher at a small Christian school here that was

founded by Africa Inland Mission and where the students are the children of local missionaries.  So every weekday from 8 to 3 I teach math and a little science to 14 kids, from ages 7 to 14.  I enjoy the teaching, but it can get frustrating at times!  We all speak English in the school, but some better than others.  We have English, American, Korean, Malagasy, South African, and Mauritian children, so it is sometimes a challenge!  I live with a Malagasy (native

Madagascar) couple myself with my American partner, who's name is Nate.  He is also a teacher at the school.  Things are going well and although it took a short while to adjust to living in a third-world country, I am settled in quite well now.  The couple I live with are fairly wealthy by Malagasy standards, and so they have a land-line phone, which is how I connect to the internet to send emails.

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Emails from Scott

April 19, 2005 - Email lfrom Gina

Dear Friends and Family,

Just wanted to let everyone know the latest with Scott.  I got word on Friday that he definitely has an appointment back to the Air Force Academy!  The paperwork has not arrived yet, but is expected this week.  This brings up something to pray about.  Scott is supposed to sign it to show his acceptance of his appointment, but he won't be back in the country until mid-June.  So I am working on finding out what we can do to get around that.

Scott is having trouble with his computer, so I don't hear from him as often as I did.  Last I heard, he was fully recovered from all his aliments, and is healthy.

My Dad, Wert Campbell, is flying to Tanzania with a group from LifeWay on April 23 for a 2-week mission trip.  After that he will go spend a few days with Scott before coming home.  He and Scott are both really excited about the visit.  Please keep them in your prayers, that they both would be healthy for this visit and it would be a good time for them.

Thanks for your continued prayers on our behalf.

Gina

Instant message between Scott and Gina - 02/09/04

Scott: hey mom

Scott: you there?

Gina: hi

Scott: about the tests, they didn't do half of them

Scott: they only did like 2 and they didn't even do the important ones

Scott: so the doctor told us to go back and get a refund

Gina: wow

Scott: so we did, but they only gave me back a little bit of the money

Gina: how are you feeling?

Scott: fine

Gina: swelling gone?

Scott: did I tell you he gave me medicine to stop the reaction?

Gina: no, did it work?

Scott: after over a week of having no medicine at all, so as to get all medicines out of my system, I was still having the itching whelps

Scott: so he gave me a steroid medicine to stop the reaction

Scott: and it worked after the first pill

Scott: i'm supposed to take it for 5 days

Scott: but after the first one, i haven't had another itching place at all

Gina: so, are you still taking it?

Scott: yeah

Scott: for another day

Scott: but get this

Scott: this medicine has made me have really bad hiccups ever since i started taking it

Gina: is it cortisone?

Scott: like deep down uncontrollable hiccups

Gina: can you sleep at night?

Scott: yeah i remembered that about dad

Scott: this isn't cortisone

Scott: yeah, i sleep fine

Scott: it doesn't affect me when I'm lying down

Gina: how many days have you been hiccupping?

Scott: about 2 now

Scott: it’s so aggravating

Scott: these kind are deep down and they hurt

Gina: well, if you are like your dad, you only have one more day to go

Scott: but I'm almost done with the medicine

Scott: yeah i remember he had them for 3 days

Scott: but that was from a cortisone shot, right?

Gina: yeah

Gina: maybe what you got is in the same family as cortisone

Scott: yeah maybe

Scott: because cortisone is considered a steroid, right?

Gina: don't know

Gina: hope it stops soon

Email from Gina - please pray for his health - 01/31/05

Email from Gina with some great news - 01/21/05

Scott's email of Jan. 18, 2005 to Gina

Hey I got the blood test this morning, and the results this afternoon. but it's all in French, and the way that place works is they just give you the results (there is no doctor there) and you take it to a doctor to have him interpret it (interpret the medical lingo, but in this case, I'd like an interpreter into English as well) and prescribe something for you. But it did say "negatife" in big letters on it.  But they tested for 2 things: malaria and something else I can't pronounce that Arlive wanted them to test for. So I don't know which it meant negative for. Because in smaller letters above the "negatife" it said a bunch of stuff in French and then "PARASITES VIVANT" in caps in the middle of the sentence, and something about a percentage. So who knows. Then we took it to a Malagasy doctor which means nothing, she just looked at it and gave me paracetamol (tylenol). Of course, it could mean that she really understands it and it says that I don't have malaria, but she didn't look too confident. And the place was just a hole in the wall. But everything is a hole in the wall here. Except the blood testing place. That was like a castle. It also has a park right after the entrance and there's a new-age looking waiting room with fancy wooden chairs and real waiting rooms and real doctors chairs and everything just like in the states. I think I'll take it to the American embassy doctor the next time I'm by there, but I don't know if he speaks (or reads) french. But since it does say negatife, and I'm feeling better, I think the best thing to do is to keep up with the paracetimol, take everything easy for a while, stop taking the preventative med (doxy) and see what happens. If I really don't have malaria, then nothing should happen. We'll see. gotta go love you mom,
Scott

Scott's email of Jan. 16, 2005 to Gina

Mom,

Well I suppose I finally have a genuine prayer request (aside from Nate). You remember the trip we took to the south a couple of weeks ago? Well ever since we got back I've been off and on fighting a weird kind of headache, and a slight fever. Arlive and everyone else I've talked to says that all the symptoms I have are indicative of malaria. Today it is worse. This headache thing is the worst part of it. Its behind my eyes, deep in my head and while it hurts continuously, it surges with pain whenever I bend over or stand up from a sitting position or turn my head quickly, or, perhaps the strangest part, whenever I move my eyes to their extreme. Like if I keep my head still and look straight forward, it is only a hard, dull pain. But if then, with my head staying still, I try to look up or down or to the sides, pain flashes through my head. One of the reasons we think its malaria is because I started taking preventative (there is preventative, and then a kind to cure it if you get it) malaria medication (Doxycycline) before we left, took it the entire time we were there, and am still taking it now. That is the prescribed way to take it. Before, during, and after your trip (supposed to be for 2 weeks after). But, it turns out, Doxy doesn't actually prevent you from getting the disease. Which makes sense,
because obviously, it can't stop the mosquito from landing on you and biting you. So all it does is mask the symptoms so that it doesn't ruin your trip. Which it did a good job of while we were there.  Besides some sunburn, a few blisters, and sundry exotic bug bites, I was well the whole time. But a few days after we got back I had this headache, a fever, and my body ached miserably, especially in my neck
and shoulders. But that went away for a few days and then I thought I was better. Then it came back, and I got a little better. Then yesterday (to my shame, I suppose. I know you're going to hate to hear this) I felt fine everywhere but my eyes. I still had that headache, though it was not as severe as it had been. My energy level was about normal. So, like I do every Saturday, I went and played rugby, which was against my better judgment. But I had already told my ride and
the other guys that I would be there, so I figured I'd just tough it out, and it might even go away with some exercise, I thought. Plus, the rugby team is almost entirely Malagasy guys, with some French guys and only 2 English speaking guys (whom I like very much. They work for MAF) So it's a good way for me to practice my Malagasy and build a relationship with them. Because when I first played, they didn't pay any attention to me at all, and I just did a lot of running around. But now that they see that I speak Malagasy (or am trying, at least) they are more friendly. It's a big compliment to them when a vazaah (white guy) speaks Malagasy because they all know French and 99% of the vazaah in Madagascar are French. The French guys are, generally speaking, very pompous (which is the French way I suppose) and really treat the Malagasy bad. I guess they feel they can because
Madagascar used to be a French colony. But then Madagascar won their
independence, so Malagasy's don't like the French much, and because America was one of the first countries to recognize the new government (shortly after we recognized it, the French did also, but very quietly and grudgingly, according to Arlive) they do, generally speaking, like Americans. But I think the language is the biggest thing. Because all the Malagasy (the vast majority anyway) know French, they speak in French to the French people. So its like the French guys are still
exercising some kind of authority, like they're saying "ha ha, you still have to speak our language." So anyway, when they meet me, I'm always quick to tell them that I don't speak French, and I tell them in Malagasy, so they are first surprised to hear a vazaah speaking Malagasy, and secondly pleased (in an odd way) that don't speak French). Then they ask if I'm English (the next largest vazaah group in Madagascar) and I tell them no, I'm American. So then they ease up a lot and are very helpful with my language. Its even comical to hear them say "oh!! Mahay ten gasy, vazahh!" which means "The vazaah speaks Malagasy!" I really don't speak it enough to say that I speak it, and am certainly a long way from Bi lingual, but it impresses them all the same. Unlike French people, who, if you try to speak French to them, they won't acknowledge you unless you are speaking perfect,
grammatically correct French. Eric has some good stories about being in an airport in France where they wouldn't answer him even though he was saying words like "terminal, where, please, how to go, etc." So anyway, the Malagasy guys like me for that. And I'm getting better quickly, also. Right now I can communicate about 75% of what I want to say to someone in Malagasy. Granted, its broken, and not grammatically correct at all, but they get the point. But then they speak back to me in grammatically correct Malagasy, and real fast, so I usually don't have a clue what they're saying. So I have to ask them to speak slower, and then they get all shocked again that I said something in Malagasy, and start hoping and hollering and saying stuff to each other and I'm like "so is it halftime or not?" So anyway, that was a huge tangent and just something to ease you into the fact that I went and played rugby while I had 90% of malaria symptoms. But my energy level was up the whole time, and my headache didn't bother me much while I was playing. Or maybe I just didn't notice it. And that was yesterday. So now I'm in pretty bad shape with a splitting headache and sore muscles and a nicely strained neck from an awesome tackle. So on top of my headache I can't lift my head up off a pillow (or look to the left) without some pretty good pain and my hamstrings are sore as the dickens (I didn't stretch properly either). But I wore that ankle brace you sent me, so my ankle never rolled under me!

Other people have told me that Doxycycline is not a very powerful malaria medication, and it is very possible that after you get back, you will have some of the symptoms, though not all of them because the medicine is still in you. That's why I wasn't totally out of action when it first came out, like malaria can do to you. But it only comes out (or shows through, or whatever) when you're body gets weak, or extremely fatigued or something where it has to concentrate on fixing something else instead of beating down the malaria inside of you. So I think that's why it came back so hard yesterday after rugby and today. And the frustrating thing is that sleep doesn't help so much, or at least you can't tell. It was very difficult to go to sleep last
night, and when I got up this morning, my head hurt even worse. For some reason it feels worse right after you wake up, And you don't sleep well at all during the night. If feels like its painful to keep my eyelids shut, but if I open them, I can't go to sleep! So anyway, I don't know what the Lord would have me to learn from this, but pray
that I will! And pray that I will be healed! Because, even though it is wrong for us to want to suffer (suffering being the result, or curse of sin in the world) His power is made perfect in weakness.  Also, praise the Lord, it has not touched my stomach very much. And pray that it won't, because you know that nausea is the one thing that I handle worse than anything else. So there you go, I gotta quit looking at this screen now. And I've got to stand up slowly so that my head doesn't explode altogether.
Talk to you later,

Scott

P.S.  I forgot to tell you, I'm going into Tana tomorrow to the CDT  - its French, but translated its Center for Diagnostic, Tananarivo.  All the people I've spoken to about this (including arlive) say to go there to be tested for malaria. Its not a Malagasy place as far as I know, so that's good. Malagasy doctors, being largely uneducated, make false diagnoses (sp?) all the time. They just prescribe calcium
every time. Its kinda like a joke here. "Just take more calcium!"  So Arlive will take me tomorrow to get a blood test (I was originally under the impression that a blood test won't reveal that you have it, but everyone here swears that it will) so they can know for sure if its malaria, and if it is, what kind. There's like 40 different kinds
of malaria, some really dangerous, and some not so dangerous. And the drugs to wipe it out are different for each strain to. So the best thing to do is first be tested to be sure it is malaria, and then try to knock it out, which is what I wanted to do. I hate guessing, especially with Malagasy doctors. What I don't want is someone to
take one look at me and say "malaria" and give me a generic drug to kill it (and my liver in the process). But apparently it can be completely eradicated from your system, which, before I left, I thought was also untrue. But the drugs to do it are pretty brutal in themselves. So, be praying
 

Scott's email of Jan. 13, 2005; he possibly has malaria

November 22 - Email

Email from Scott to Gina,

Thanks mom. can't talk long, got to go to bed. Yes, your package was
here by last Friday but I was only able to pick it up today.  Thank
you so much!!!!   I was going to write and ask you for my ankle brace,
I think I left it at home somewhere in my room.  Next time you send a
package, whenever that may be, can you include that?  the brace you
sent works well, however. It fits me perfectly.  I am going to play
rugby this Saturday with some guys from church who invited me, so it
came just in time.  That brace of mine though would be ideal to go on
over top of the one you sent me, to have the most protection against
rolling over.  And thanks so much for the protein bars!!!!!  and the
cookies!!! and the slim jims and all that.  It was like getting my
first package at USAFA!

will write more tomorrow.  love you mom,

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