Mission to Ukraine 7/18/2007 - Kiev

The next day I was really sick. Since I live in Florida, which is extremely humid in the summer, I don’t notice 85 to 90 degree dry heat as much as I should. We have many 80-degree days in January and February here. But I had become so dehydrated that I couldn’t seem to get enough water to slack my thirst. Since it was the hottest week in Kiev so far that summer, I had tried to get cool by sleeping without my shirt. I woke up at 3 am shivering and had to get dressed into warmer clothing and get under the blankets. Still I couldn’t stop shivering. I woke up in the morning with a fever. We took my temperature. It was 103 degrees, or some equivalent in centigrade, which Alexei said was “impossible.” It was kind of scary for a while.

I slept most of the day and all of the next night. I woke up for a few hours in the evening and could feel my fever starting to break. I was sweating, but I felt better. I had really pushed myself by going two days without sleep when I first arrived. I had gone on excursions almost every day and ate everything. So it’s not surprising I finally got so sick.