Dengue Experience

20th June: Woke up with a heavy head and went to work. However, after lunch, I blacked out for a while. Colleagues were nice to pack my stuff from the office and called a cab to send me to my family clinic.

21-24th June: Fever all the way. Have been feeding on panadols a lot to bring down the fever. went to work on monday and manage to present the big proj to the dept head, reach home to find out i have a fever of 39 degree celsius. Tuesday morning was feeling all terrible.. wanted to proceed to work but stopped by my mum. so i rested a few more hours before she brought me to the clinic to see the family doc again. Doc insist I am fine and didn't want to do a blood test. only gave me two more days of mc.

25th-26th June: Itchy rashes start to develop. Fever has subsided but the itch was really unbearable. went to see family doc on the 26th, only to have him told me i was diagnose with some virus infection.

27th June: Woke up and thought i would be ready to go back to work despite given an mc today. Was on my way to the bus stop when i realised my right eye had severe blurry vision. Tried rubbing my eyes a few more times as I thought it would be better but the vision remained the same. Couldn't even focus to work on my report in front of the desktop at work as the right eye blurry vision is hindering my progress and making me hard to focus with one the left eye functioning.

28th June: thought the blurry eye would be better but then it remained the same. however as i agreed on a part time job in lim bang, cck, i had no choice but to work with my half vision. It was tough and terrible.

29th June: eye problem still persist. this made my mum very worried and she sent me to the family doc again. The family doc then wrote a referral letter to A&E ttsh. dad drove us down to ttsh that night. it was a long wait at A&E. First, I went to see a normal general practitioner doc there and i told him of my eye problem as well as the other symptoms that I had experienced the past few days. He suspected it was caused by dengue and called and eye doctor down to have me diagnosed. The eye doctor came down and did an eye check up for me using this eye machine which i have no idea what it is called. he stung my eyes by putting some eye drops and began looking into this machine. Told us I have 3 blood clots in the right eye, but two are dispersing. he later called his doc in charge to arrange for me to have another diagnose session with her the next day. Suspected that my eye is related to dengue, he called back the GP doctor to have a blood test on me.

30th June: In the morning had this Star wars which my dept head had allowed me to do it from home as he understands the stress involved. however, my fingers were not fast enough as i couldn't get some modules. luckily Derrick (my study buddy) managed to help me click on those mods and we managed to settle all the course problem before noon.

Went to hospital in the noon for the scheduled eye check up by the bigger doc. Oh man, this female eye doc is gorgeous (& smart needless to say, or else how can she be a doctor). really admire this kind of lady. they diluted my pupils again with some eye drop and began checking my eyes again. she said i had some minor infection in my right eye as well and prescribed this steriod eye drop to me. Then she consulted another even bigger eye doc on my case and arranged for a slot with him that day. Again, i got diagnosed by this big big eye doc. he suggested i return one week later to do this eye test whereby they will inject this yelloe dye into my blood stream via the IV needle on my back hand so that they can observe the eye blood vessel for leakages. Thankful that I have a very nice and wonderful mummy who would keep accompanying me even though she has free time to do other things on her off-days.

7th July: Went back for the dengue follow up at CDC. it was very far walk from ttsh. the waiting time there is very long as well. i was quite jovial on that day cause i don't have to work on this day and my eye sight has been recovering. Went in to the see the doc and she feels that I should be fine... didn't want to do a blood test for me. but her superior insisted so she no choice had to send me to the nurses to take the blood. indeed, the nurses are more experienced in the needle-ling part of blood test for i suffered no bruises there after compared to the one that the GP doc took from me a week earlier at A&E. by the way, the bruises were still there even after a week. hahas. blood test came back as a positive one... meaning i am recovering compared to the last week result. but they schedule for me to go to poly clinic for a last round of blood test for this dengue at the end of this month just to make sure everything is alright.

Went to Novena with mummy to have our lunch. I wanted to bring her to TCC to try out the food for i personally love it myself but she seemed reluctant cause the cafe looked too atas to her and she has this feeling that it will be very expensive. so nvm, we try out this coffee town. oh gosh... the food there is very horrible as well as its coffee... we condemn this cafe from this date onwards! expensive and horrible food.

Went shopping around novena to kill some time before we meet the eye doc at ttsh. Head straight to the eye center where they ask me to do an eye reading test and dilated my pupils again for a series of IV test thereafter.

This was the very first time i had IV need inserted. Gosh, it's quite painful. even with the needle poked in, as you move your hands around... it's really painful. then they sent me to this room whereby they would do a capturing of my eye internals with the dye inserted into my blood stream. to be honest, the feeling was horrible as they dilated my pupils, so my eyes could adjust to the bright beam from the eye cameras. futher more, the camera beam was flickering as well.. when the dye was injected to me to do the eye "x-ray", i have this nausea feeling straight away... but i didn't want to prolong the session and manage to tahan the entire process. painful indeed!

there after, I was asked to wait for my eye doc for the review of the eye tests. needed to wee to wash out the dye in my blood... but with my iv on, its really difficult to go to the toilet... the urine was really very bright yellow... almost look like it can glow. hahas... certain areas to take note of after the dye injections as some did develop complications... thank God nothing happened to me accept for the nausea feeling initially when it was being injected into my blood stream.

waited for an hour before I got called up to enter to the doc room. again, he went on to observe my eye with the machine. explained the eye photos to my mum and i. basically he said the blood clots are dispersing but some blood vessels in my eye has symptoms of leakages. not very good. he gave me some eye drop for a month before going back to him again for a review. praying for my eyes to completely heal by then if not they have to feed me with some medicine that is very strong and can be quite bad for my health :(

Brought my mummy to pepper lunch that night for dinner. i personally enjoyed pepper lunch and was glad she enjoyed the food on her first time there :)

in total, for all the reviews and diagnosis done so far in ttsh... it has cost me $400! u small mosquito! caused me so much time, money, pain and misery for one of your kisses to me!