the reason behind the dormancy

IT STOPPED RAINING and i feel lot better now. i could actually feel the air fill my lungs again, smell the musty smell of my room (which i don’t miss at all), get lost in the familiar taste of my favorite creamed coffee, not to mention that feel great now because i just had a decent bath moments ago. i really felt my body crusting with ‘libag’ already and my body is developing pruritic rashes, that’s why a cold bath is something i have been craving for so much. i have missed a lot of things. i have missed the things i usually do. my daily routine was in chaos, thanks to my ‘sickness’, i was not able to do a lot of things lately except get irritated, whine, and drink water…

i was sick for five days. almost a week. it all started with a sneeze (they all start with this, right?), followed by another sneeze, then two more after that. the sneezing goes on till it made my nose to flare. my little sister never failed to notice while singing “rudolph, the rednosed reindeer”. bless me. it’s not for long before i developed watery discharge from my nose. anyway i am used to it, because i always suspected myself for having allergic rhinitis. my nose is very sensitive to any irritant, so sneezing is just part of my everyday routine, not to mention the ‘allergic salute’. i use to pinch my nose with my index finger and thumb to scratch away the itchiness. i am used to doing it that it actually became one of my infamous mannerisms, as my friends pointed out. i have also learned that people who does this unconsciously maybe ‘sexually preoccupied’. (hmm…hehe!).

the next day, i woke up with a headache, and i started to cough and bark like a dog! (arf!arf!). this was a bad sign because that meant i already developed an upper respiratory infection that spread down to my throat causing the cough. it was very hard to sleep that night. counting sheeps is rendered ineffective. music couldn’t rock me off to sleep because it worsens my now pounding headache. i couldn’t sleep because it was very hard for me to breath. my nose is congested and my cough had gone worse. i am irritated by the sticky feeling of mucus slowly flowing down my nose that i had to stand up and blow my nose, over and over again (this, of course, is the wrong way to do it. blowing the nose over and over again may cause trauma to the nasal passages that could cause bleeding or laceration. fyi: medical practitioners, like me, make the worst patients. hehe!). i had to make my breathing shallow because deep breathing irritates the lining of my lung passages forcing me to cough again. (hays). lack of sleep won me a pair of very large and very gray-colored eyebags(woohoo!), two pus-filled pimples, and prolonged fatigue.

my condition got worse the next day, because then i developed fever. fever was the most common symptom i have experienced through the four years of my nursing education. i find this symptom very easy to manage, especially in the clinical setting. just let the patient rest, give him a tepid sponge bath (i mastered this already), give a dose of antipyretic drug (paracetamol is commonly used), encourage patient to increase oral fluid intake (2-3 liters of fluid a day will do), advise loose clothing (don’t let the patient use pajamas, sweaters, nor blankets, to let body heat escape), and maintain proper environmental ventilation (fan the patient to ‘blow away’ the heat).

i realized, when you’re sick, these principles are much harder to apply when caring for yourself than when you’re caring for others. i felt so cold that i placed my self under a thick blanket. (hehe!) it was very hard to monitor your oral fluid intake since i was very weak to get water, and somehow, i don’t feel thirsty at all. there must be a problem with my tongue. most sick people have, i guess. every food i take tastes like carpet. i couldn’t taste them. sometimes, i found them rubbery against my teeth, and very difficult to swallow, together with a small amount of mucus from my pharynx (one advantage of having taste problem when being sick). even beverages taste bitter. (hays).

i have managed to control my temperature down but it always shoot up again after six hours. this continued for the next two days. i was still struggling to have a decent sleep, my eyebags continued to swell, my pimples continued to shine with their glorious red-and-yellow color, the food continued to taste nothing. i am like chewing invisible food (eg. lugaw with egg, rice with egg, siopao, noodles, etc.). i am growing weak, irritated, bored.

one thing i hate about being sick, is being bored. for five days, i was just in my bed, trying to sleep, but unsuccessful, of course. i don’t want to get bored. i am not used to stay in one place for a long period of time. i couldn’t watch my favorite tv series, write my blog for the day, listen to music, do my ‘hip hop abs’ aerobics, read ‘harry potter and the deathly hallows’ for the 2nd time, nor text my friends.

since i got sick, i was not able to contact my friends for two reasons: one, i am financially challenged, and two, i am too weak to send and reply to any messages. but i am so grateful to those who still remembered and asked how i am doing even if i failed to contact them. there is a hundred contacts in my phonebook but only a handful remembered me. (you know who you are. hehe!).

i had myself checked in a clinic. i had some blood tests and i had my urine checked. it turned out my blood is concentrated due to abnormally elevated hemoglobin levels. it also showed bacterial infection as manifested by increased segmenters in my blood. also, i was diagnosed with urinary tract infection, for having 15-20/hpf of pus cells in my urine. i am not alarmed though. doses of antibiotics (‘norfloxacin:50 pesos per tablet twice a day for 7 days, ‘acnex forte’: 8 pesos per capsule, thrice a day for 5 days. do the math! huhu!) and 3 liters of water intake should do the trick.

now i feel a lot better although i still feel a little queasy. i am just thankful that i am still here, and because there are just worse things that could happen to me. it stopped raining here. i better start the day with renewed spirit.