Public enemy number one

April 17th 2011

THERE are few things a Royal Marine commando fears.

Heights? Unlikely.

Spiders? I’m guessing not.

His wife? Quite possibly.

However, D&V – otherwise known as ‘Diarrhea and Vomiting’ or ‘dysentery’ – has got to be top of that very short list. Especially when you're 'in-theatre'.

Hence the reason why I seem to have become public enemy number one in the last couple of days.

Strangely enough, they now fear me.

I’m writing this having been confined to barracks, or quarantined, or indeed locked away, depending on which member of the BFBS Bastion team you talk to.

My only real contact with the outside world has been by email or phone.

(Unless of course you count Paul Wright, BFBS station manager here in Bastion, checking in on me dressed in full white boiler suit and surgical mask – thanks again for that mate…)

And so here I sit, sharing my grimmest hour with you, my only audience.

I’m not sure how I picked up the bug which ‘royal’ – and every other serviceman or woman for that matter – fears.

I just know I woke up at about 4am on Friday feeling like I had spent the last four or five hours sleep-drinking several litres of Pepsi.

I didn’t really feel sick, at first, just very bloated.

I made my way from my cot bed in the accommodation tent next to the officer’s mess, and down to the toilets.

When I got there I, um… do you really want to know the detail?

After a few attempts of ignoring the inevitable diagnosis while catching my face’s reflection in the toilet pan, I realised I wasn’t very well.

Cue sad violin music.

I carried my sorry, and equally sore, behind up to FOB Shawqat’s medical clinic and woke the doctor. Before I knew it, I had been confined to a tented hospital ward alongside a couple of other D&V sufferers.

Separated by duty and profession, we were together in pain. The moans and groans from the tent must have sounded like critics watching the newly released US William and Kate movie.

And there I stayed for seven hours until the helicopter arrived to take us the short distance from the base in Nad-e-Ali, to my home away from home in Camp Bastion.

When it’s 37 degrees Celsius in the shade the last thing you want to be is dehydrated.

There are truly few things that people out here fear. But getting D&V in-theatre is way up on that list.

It’s super contagious and it wipes people out.

You can’t eat or drink for fear of bringing it back up and it saps your energy.

All you can do is sleep and sip water to keep yourself hydrated.

Every time I nip to the loo I’m washing my hands with antiseptic soap and wiping down everything I touch.

At present, forget the insurgents, I am the enemy.

Anyone fancy a game on online scrabble?

Twitter: @tristan_nichols