wonderment

Thank you for your kind prayers for me.

I seriously have gotten the blessed end of the stick, God has been kind. I escaped the rough bits of the disease, no rashes, no bleeding, no terrible nausea … I have been chirpy and can handle most daily functions and the best thing of all - my platelets are on the way up! Today, after a not-so-nice run in with the doctor I went to (after my own doctor made me go to the polyclinic for the weekend) I finally found out my results and I’m back in the healthy range -152!

I’m still not back in my pre-dengue count of 244 (Nov’07) but I just have to go for one more blood test to certify that it’s going up up up!

I’m tremendously grateful for the long rest. Has helped me consider quite a few things that have been getting me down … well, I can’t reveal too much now because of the sensitivity and uncertainty of the issues but once they become official, then I’ll share.

For now, to bask in the joy of finally being able to clean up my room!!

My blood platelets are up! It’s 126, just 14 points more and I’ll be back in the healthy range. Oh I can’t wait for the day when I don’t have to take another blood test. I don’t go hysterical at blood tests like I used to, but if I can, I’d like to stay far far away from them for a long long time …

Just one more thing to go … the bodyaches! I don’t think I need to feel like I’ve done a gazillion crunches and then when I get well, the truth sets in!

It’s Day 3 since I found out I had dengue …

No one knows for sure when I got bitten, where I got bitten. With my hectic schedule, I could have gotten it anywhere.

This is a real strange disease. There are no predictable patterns, another person’s experience doesn’t necessarily translate to yours and even the doctor can’t predict how far along you are.

She tells me its the critical phase, these few days, but I’m fortunate that I haven’t got it so bad. I’ve got a healthy appetite, even though I can’t eat my regular portions or what I’m used to eating. I’m still pretty cheery and chirpy, the only thing that gets me down is looking out of the window and thinking about how I used to run to the MRT next door to catch the train to work and now if I even think of walking downstairs, I’ll probably be so out of breath I’ll blank out for real. So near yet so far.

The bodyaches are bothersome but not overly painful. I just feel like  I’ve run the 15km marathon I did last year, 5 more times. 

Otherwise, I’m pretty happy, having the time to relax and catch up on my reading, finishing my essay for my graduate diploma course yesterday and emailing it in. No one’s been calling  my office line and the emails have gotten lesser so I can really cut down my worrying about office work. I called Val today to pass the Em some messages and that was that.

Now, it’s just to wait for the doctor to call me back on my results early this afternoon…

Reality sank in today …

While walking to the clinic some distance away from the car, I suddenly felt breathless,  my breathing became short and choppy. It wasn’t very serious, but I told the doctor and she waved it away saying that I was just imagining things.  After the blood test and I was walking back to the car with Hsien, I suddenly felt my head spinning and my eyes were blanking out, I could barely see in front of me. Hsien had to support me under my arms so I wouldn’t collapse on the road. It was scary!

Once I returned home and sat down, I felt tons better.

But there was a niggling feeling …Had my platelets gone down?

Throughout the day, I continued to take phone calls, send emails (yes, still working from home!) and Hsien who was with me and overheard my conversations said that no one was ever going to believe I had dengue from the way I sounded! So I felt mighty fine … except I couldn’t stand for too long because the breathlessness and dizzyness would come again.

At about 7pm, the doctor calls again to tell me the result of my report and my fears were right. My platelets had dropped down to 90, just 10 shy of the number to get me immediately admitted into hospital. The funny thing was, my temperature was hovering around the 37 range, a very low grade fever. My dad believed that I was getting better already, I didn’t. The doctor already warned me that even though my temperature could drop, it didn’t mean that my platelets were okay.

So now at 10pm, I’m lying on the sofa feeling absolutely wrung out. The bodyache and headache has set in and I’m really ready to retire to bed …

I hope, I hope, I don’t need to go to the hospital after tomorrow’s blood test …

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 …