I want to commend Joya Banerjee. I had come back from West Africa not feeling well and collapsed. I went to the hospital and found out I had malaria. I was walking around with it for about a month not knowing. It was in 70% of my blood. The CDC was called in and I was given the standard drugs, but they did not work. Finally, the CDC decided to give me an experimental drug which ended up working.
Joya saved my life. I had a fever of 105 and she said that I needed to get that down to 98.2 within 12 hours. She went old school. She sat with me and took all the blankets off me, poured ice all over me and had a fan on me to keep me cool to break the fever. I kept going in and out of delirium but I heard her voice and her words willing me to live. She kept saying, “you do not have aids and you can walk out of this hospital and go back to your regular life.” I wanted to give up, but she would not have any of it. She kept me fighting and just willed me to live. She was by my side the whole time and finally the fever broke and went down to 98.2. I owe her my life, I will be forever grateful.