I've have all the things your character has suffered. Malaria, Miscarriage, and as someone else mentioned their brother is, I'm also dyslexic.
While living in Papua New Guinea I had Cerebral Malaria (this is the worse one). It is going in my book 'Expat Brat' and I have actually written that bit so I have copy pasted it below. Obviously when I first start getting sick you don't know what is wrong with me... Note this is the first draft so there are probably errors in there. If you find any good ones let me know and I'll fix them up.
I had malaria 12 years ago and have not had any problems since. It look me two weeks before I returned to work, about a month before I felt ok but a bit tired and about 2 months before I was back to normal.
People living in Malarial counties do not take the prophylactics because when taken long term they cause damage to your liver and kidneys. I didn’t know anyone who took malarial tablets full time. The prophylactic medications give you a constant chlorine taste in your mouth, leave you exhausted and there are other side effects I can’t think of right now.
My miscarriage was 3.5 months ago and was what is called blighted oviam. This means the foetus stopped growing normally at some point. I had a clear fluid discharge much like a small little water breaking and then blood like a light period. When this happened I went to the hospital, had a ultrasound, then a D&C, and then a very heavy period followed for about a week.
Re your character having the blood run down her leg. It wouldn’t. It doesn’t just gush anymore than a period starting. After years of menstruating women are aware of flow in that area long before blood would get anywhere near your thigh. It's no less likely to run down you leg than it would if your period started suddenly.
Here is my malaria experience – note I was Fitness Manager for a hotel, and as PNG is ridiculously dangerous all staff lived in two hotel rooms that had been converted into flats… readers know the flat is in the hotel when they read this:
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It was after a comparatively small party that I woke up around three am to be sick. This was unusual for me. My body is use to digesting a lot of alcohol. It takes a lot to get me throwing up.
At four am to woke to be sick again. Waking again thirty minutes later I was starting to get annoyed.
I hadn’t drunk enough to be sick. Throwing up all morning was not like me.
My flat is freezing. The throwing up was making me sweat but I was absolutely freezing. I was sweeting so much my sheets were wetter than they are coming out of the washing machine, before the spin dry, but I was so cold I had to get the spare blanket I had never before used and place it on top of my quilt. Who has turned down the hotels air conditioner? I moved to the right sides of the bed but soon that was as sweat soaked as the left. The whole bed was drenched so climbed on the outside of the quilt and cocooned myself in the dry outer part of the quit. Why is it so cold? My teeth were chattering and I had goose bumps, but sweat was pouring off me.
I kept throwing up every twenty to thirty minutes and after a couple of hours I also got the runs. All this throwing up was making me exhausted. I was sweating more than if playing beach volleyball in the sun and I was shattered with fatigue.
What is wrong with this air conditioner? I had to do something about being so cold. Even behind razor wire, video surveillance and a large security division I always had to sleep with my glass doors locked, I just didn’t feel safe sleeping with them open. But tonight is too cold. Deciding to take the risk I opened the veranda doors to let the warm tropical air warm fill the freezing room.
The runs were presenting a problem. I had to keep flushing the toilet so I could throw up in a clean bowl but then half way through throwing up again I had focus to clench my but cheeks, to stop the explosive brown liquid covering the entire bathroom. After an hour of swinging around on the toilet, switching from diarrhoea to spewing and back again, it got to the point there would be no more choosing, both wanted to happen at the same time.
Stuck on the toilet not able to move off for fear of more butt explosions I felt the water gathering in my mouth. Feeling ice-cold, I was wrapped in a big fluffy towel yet small pools had gathered on the floor where sweat had run down my elbows. I needed to be sick but I couldn’t risk removing my butt from the toilet. There was nothing left, my body had run out of stomach contents to bring up, some something demanded I throw up more. Bright yellow thick bile, concentrated into a soft jelly was all that was left to be jet-propelled from my body.
The towel then felt hot. I felt hot. I felt like I was burning up but I was trapped on the loo simultaneously heaving into my plastic garbage can and exploding brown water. It is too hot. Has some idiot turned on the heaters. I have to close those glass doors I feel like I’m in a furnace.
At the risk of body fluids escaping, I made a dash for the glass doors and shut out the hot tropical air. All the throwing, heaving and dry reaching had my throat feeling like I’ve been eating razor wire. Weighing the risks of messing up my flat with the desire for something to drink, I decided the pros where worth the cons and dashed into the kitchen for a bottle of blue Powerade.
The blue Powerade didn’t stay down longer than five minutes, but I was thrilled to discover that blue Powerade has the magic property of tasting the same on the way back up as it did going down. Believe me when I tell you Powerade tastes a whole lot better than thick fluoro bile.
With the doors closed I soon was freezing again. I’d been awake for at least three hours and was starting to resent the lost sleep. I have two aerobics classes to teach tomorrow.
It was frustrating. Feeling cold I’d open the doors and within no time at all I was boiling up again. Hot. Cold. Boiling. Freezing. Shivering. Sweating. Freezing. Hot. Ice-cold. Burning up. Shivering. I was getting extremely frustrated not being able to find the right temperature.
This is a bastard hang over. I knew I hadn’t drunk anywhere near enough to be this sick and wondered if someone had put vodka in my beers. Can you die from a hangover? I couldn’t remember ever being this sick in my life.
I have strong opinions about letting alcohol get in the way of work. One morning when I was dreadfully hung over I taught a class wearing sunglasses. But never once had I failed to turn up and teach a class. My class was eight am, so at seven thirty I forced myself into an aerobics outfit, did my hair, brushed my teeth three times, and got ready for work. Half way out the door I raced back to the bathroom where I was stuck for ten minutes.
When the class was due to start in ten minutes I knew I needed to get to the gym, but I only got half way across the lounge room before returning to the loo. This is a killer hangover!
Like all hotels there is a phone in the toilets. Finally admitting to myself that I really couldn’t teach my eight am class, I rang Leila to tell her I was sick.
“What’s wrong with you” she asked in a voice full of hang over accusations.
“I’m sick,” I whined putting it on a bit. I explained that I had been throwing up and hadn’t slept because some idiot was obviously playing with the hotels temperature controls all night, meaning I couldn’t find a comfortable temperature for my flat.
Leila asked if I was going hot then cold. “Yes.”
“Ok, if you are sick you can go to the hospital, met Steven the drive in the foyer at eight thirty.”
One of the draw backs of living at your place of work is the way executive management have control of your whole life. I am sick. The doctor will give me a medical certificate to confirm this.
I took another quick shower and dressed in light summer clothes. Then I started feeling cold again so I added a light jumper which did nothing so I grabbed an additional ski jacket before rushing down to met Steven.
My guess is that I looked pretty bad sitting in the doctors waiting room. The Papua New Guinea woman in a cheap mari-blouse and worn-until-paper-thin flip flops got up and moved from her seat next to me. The hospital waiting room was busy and everyone kept looking up from their magazines to stare. I had only been in my seat for a couple of minutes and already twenty centimetre puddles had formed on the floor where the sweat was dripping off each elbow.
Missy the Fijian doctor came into the waiting room. He was about to announce the next persons name when he took one look at me, gave the other patients card back to the nurse and took me to his ??? doctors office. I really must look bad.
I knew Missy. He was an active member of Sports Club and a regular at the water ski pontoon. Missy knew what I normally look like and I could tell he was concerned by the way his forehead frowned and his eyes squinted as they scanned me. I shouldn’t have any problems getting this medical certificate.
Missy asked when I first started feeling sick and I told him it was probably only about eight hours ago. Comparing his physical examination to my symptoms Missy said “I think we need to check you for malaria young lady.” Oooh bloody hell. I just wanted a medical certificate, malaria is taking things a bit far.
Missy dropped some blood onto a paper strip much like litmus stick and announced “Not good. It’s positive.” Missy explained the quick test is only ???% accurate, thought from my symptoms and this test it appeared that I had malaria so he would treat as if I do. He stuck another needle in my arm and drew out a few test tubes of blood (I was surprised there were any fluids left to withdraw) for the proper malaria analysis. He me a couple of shots of anti malarial drugs, some powerful sedatives and promised to come and visit me at the hotel later that afternoon.
In a haze I bit Missy farewell and went out to find Steven. Whatever Missy gave me was strong. On the way back to the hotel I started hallucinating. Though I didn’t realise I was hallucinating; I really thought the road was covered in diamonds and kept going on and on about how beautiful they were. Poor Steven didn’t understand I was medically high, so when I started talking to people who weren’t in the car, and dodging things that were not flying about, he was a little puzzled.
Back at the hotel I slept for four days. I don’t remember much about those four days at all. Apparently Missy stopped by my room every afternoon, I assume he gave me more shots, but it is all a blur I can’t remember. I do remember ringing mum in a dizzy haze and complaining I needed someone to put their hand backwards on my forehead like she did when I got tonsillitis as a kid...
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Then other people come in and other stuff gets mixed in that will not make much sense without reading more of the book. Should give you a bit of insight on what it feels like to actually get malaria - not many people assume they have malaria from the start. And this is a true account. I really did get malaria and it really did happen exactly like this.
