wonderment

I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to get dengue.

Would you be sick with a scorching fever and blood oozing out of everywhere? Would you be plagued by chills and be near the brink of death? Certainly seems like it. At the rate the government makes dengue such a thing to be reckoned with, it is incredibly serious.

So yesterday, when I sat at home, anxiously waiting for the phone to ring with the results of a blood test I took earlier in the day, I wasn’t REALLY expecting dengue. I thought it was just an extended viral fever that didn’t manifest in the usual flu or inflamed throat and I was a little pissed off that the doctor didn’t want to give me antibiotics!

….. I’ve been  having an unstable temperature since Sunday evening (yes, it came on 2 hours before my birthday party was supposed to start!) but only got to see a doctor the next afternoon. She sent me off with a 2 day MC and a packet of panadol … A packet of PANADOL?? How serious was that?

On one hand, I was happy to get a 2 day MC, on the other, I wondered how serious it was … She did remind me to come back to see her for a blood test if the temperature persisted onto Tuesday. Tuesday came and the temperature was up and down no matter if I’d eaten the panadol or not so  I didn’t plan to see her. Towards the later part of the evening, the temperature seemed to get better but on Wednesday, it was back up to 38 degrees, so it was the blood test and another day off …

When she finally told me I had dengue, I didn’t know what to think. Or maybe I had too many thoughts that it drowned out everything.

I just had to ask - how bad is it? do I need to go to the hospital? What can’t I do? What CAN I do? Is there any medicine I can eat to help me get better?

I momentarily freaked out. But my parents, when I mouthed to them that I had DENGUE, went paranoid.

Turns out, my platelets (the stuff that helps your blood to clot) was lower than a normal person’s (140-400), mine was 110 yesterday, and my white blood cells were showing signs of infection.

When I put the doctor on my phone’s speaker phone, she started getting overly excited and stuttering and stammering that made my family even more nervous. Out of everyone, I was the coolest, asking the questions that were flooding my mind and behaving very professionally, as I’ve always been taught to do.

When the doctor got off the phone, my parents were so stressed out that they started blaming each other about whether it was the plants we keep that caused the problem, or that we had some secret place in the house that was breeding mosquitoes.  They closed all the windows in the house, making the tension more unbearable than it already was.

After a while, they finally gave up and the phone-calling began. Everyone was extremely concerned about my rest and drinking enough water and basically getting well. So nice!

Now, with my platelets (the stuff that makes your blood clot) so low and with the possibility of going even lower, I can’t afford to go out in case I fall down and bruise myself. I’m on indefinite sick leave (at least for 2 weeks) until my platelets climb up to normal levels.

In fact, I was more thrilled that my schedule suddenly got cleared automatically for two whole weeks than worried that I actually got dengue fever.

Reality hadn’t sunk in yet …