Dengue.

A week ago, I got diagnosed with dengue fever and it was the worst few days of my life.

Last Tuesday, I was burning with a fever of 39.5 and that’s when my nightmare began. I didn’t get to sleep at all for 2 days straight and I visited the doctor’s almost 3 times over a span of 2 days. I personally thought it was just a sudden fever and it will subside soon or so we thought. The fever didn’t subside one bit and it was still at 39 degrees on Thursday so I went to the doctors at 8am in the morning. The past few visits to the doctors didn’t require any blood tests but this time, he was insistent that I took one if the fever didn’t subside by Friday (the next day).

Truth is, I’m scared of injections and hospitals so I wanted to recover so badly because I don’t want to take any blood tests. But when Friday came, I know I absolutely had to take the blood test because I felt like dying, literally. I was vomiting everything I ate and it was kind of like stomach flu except with a burning fever. Mum was getting worried too so on Friday, I made my way to the Polyclinic for a blood test (cause it was much cheaper there apparently). Ok, time to be a grown ass adult…*draws blood from my wrist joint thing*…*breathe out*…wasn’t THAT bad…then the wait for the results took 1.5 hours. I almost died on the waiting area but I pulled through anyway.

After bringing the results back to my GP, she literally “OH SHIT” me…” It’s dengue”. FCKKK. Seriously but…I don’t have rashes etc): The GP called my mum and told me to go to A&E immediately, apparently the platelets count of a normal human is 150 and mine was 70 which drastically lower than a normal person. Great. Now I have to be hospitalized…with pins and needles in my hands. What luck! Mama flew back from her workplace and took me to A&E and guess what the doctor said? “Nope, there’ no cure for dengue, you can rest at home until you are better” * signs a 7 day MC*

Okay, so I don’t have to live in the hospital, that’s a relief but that that’s WAYY too cool to be doctor. The next couple of day only seem to get worse, apparently you are not supposed to drink water when you have dengue, sugared drinks works better with the illnesses…someone should have told me that earlier…that could have saved me from vomiting so many times. Oh did I mention on my way out of the A&E section, my uncle was on a wheelchair there too? Well yeah, he got dengue fever too and he’s in a much worse shape than me that’s for sure.

It was said that the juice from papaya leaves would cure dengue fever and Mum being mum, she went to pluck some papaya leaves and forced me to drink the juice. Imagine the dread. I drank 2 sips to acknowledge her hard work. It’s gross. The worst part of dengue is the rashes, it fcking itchy and disgusting. My skin was literally on fire every minute and I can’t seem to stop scratching my palms, my feet my arms…I tried bathing in hot water a couple of time but it just doesn’t seem to help. I couldn’t sleep the entire night because of the itch and the next morning, it’s like…it just disappeared…the rashes. Sickening I know.

I hope I never get dengue again. I hope all the mosquitoes on earth can just die but part of me miss not doing anything and just waiting for it all to be over. But I’m still thankful my mum was always there cooking food for me even if I just take no more than five bites of her cooking during that period. Blessed? I think so too.