Taking Elijah to the doctor

I am very thankful that, overall, our family has been very healthy here in Uganda. Of course my tongue has been a concern, but we have really only had a few acute illnesses in our 7 months here. David and Esther have both had bacterial infections and there have been a few digestive issues, but that is not too bad for a family of 6 in over 7 months.

Last night Elijah's head began bothering him. He has had fever and headache on an off all day today. Then this afternoon he had some stomach aches. These are classic symptoms of malaria, but has tested negative both in the rapid test and tonight when I took him to the clinic for the blood test on the slide and a complete blood count. All the labs are normal, but he still has a fever and feels bad. If it were a virus or a bacterial infection that should have shown up on the blood count. 

Please pray that Elijah will feel better soon. Also please pray that if it is malaria it will show up on a test soon. Sometimes the parasite count is low so it does not happen to be in every sample of blood. It also is a disease that fluctuates a bit at first. Some of the other missionaries on campus never test positive until the malaria has gotten very bad. So we are trying to decide whether to just treat him for malaria, or wait and see if he improves from some other undetected illness. Thank you for your prayers for my boy. I will keep you posted.