Firstly before I begin to tell the story and probably do a bit of whining and complaining, I have to make sure that everyone knows just how supportive, loving, and helpful Malaysians are. All my teachers, and the teachers from my other areas where I hold workshops either txt messaged me, showed up at the hospital or both. Even the perfect strangers in my first hospital experience who shared my room (all 29 of them) did whatever they could to help make me comfortable. Once in JB, the teaching Doctor of internal medicine made a point of finding support for me outside the hospital, and bent over backwards to try to make me as comfortable as she could. My Language Officer from M o E was visiting me regularly, and saw me off to JB \, taking my computer and car keys to hold until Jeff could pick them up, and the list goes on. My zone manager and my district manager from work drove across country to visit and hold my hand.My poor zone manager had just picked up my passport as the visa for work was being completed. He had to drive back, because the hospital needed it, and then it had to be picked up again as the temporary visa runs out tomorrow. Then, because I do not have the permanent visa in place, he had to drive back again because the hospital wanted RM1000 and only in cash. I had RM100 in my wallet, so he had to burn up the highways yet again to make that payment. Of course upon release, I had used only a fraction of that amount, but they could not issue a refund because it was the weekend. Now I have a friend who lives in JB going in on Tuesday to get the refund, which will then have to be applied to the KT bill. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh The KUDO award goes to a close tie between my adoptive families here, namely Jeff for his endless visits and Emma, who was the only person in Malaysia that could track down apple sauce – the only food I could consume after a week fast. After my shorter stay in JB the people who I shared a room with (3) hugged me, wished me well, and said how much they would miss me.
So, now for the story. I will try to sprinkle it with Jeff’s comments, as he was the one that was conscious, and found great amusement in some of my antics. I have been hounding my landlord to screen my place, I have tried to do it myself, and I have tried to hire others to do it – all to no avail. I did manage to get a couple of windows done myself and they work. However, the nasty little gnats got me, and I became extremely ill. It started with serious pain in my muscles, like a cramp that would not let go. The worst of it was the cramp was in every muscle, so that the pull of the knots was trying to break my bones in half as well. I didn’t know if the muscle pain was worse than the bone pain, but I could not dwell on that because I had such a raging fever, I didn’t give a care about much of anything. I tried to fix this myself, not knowing what I had, and traipsed off to work one morning filling my belly with muscle pain Tylenol and seeing what I could do. I lasted about one hour, and then collapsed. The teachers freaked out, and dragged me to the HM office to lay down until they came up with a plan. They then took me to a doctor in some private clinic beyond my school and further into wilderness. That nice doctor gave me happy drugs for the pain and fever meds to lower my fever which had begun to climb higher. Her advice was if still a fever in the morning, go to the hospital immediately. Next morning I was not sure how to do the hospital thing, so found another doctor in KT who wrote some letter after examining me and said get immediately to the hospital. I was checked there and admitted, and fell into a cot for the rest of the week in a blur. The accounting for this comes from Jeff because he was there first thing in the morning and after work each day. He was also the lucky recipient of my txt massages of whatever I was freaking out about at the time.
KT hospital is more a triage station where you either go to get a band aide or taped up and moved to a hospital in JB. Things went from bad to worse, and they kept trying to make me eat. I had no appetite and the nasty fish, rice and whatever else they offered made me gag. I tried to eat a spoon of rice and threw it up with all the water I had drunk earlier. If that was not enough, the other end began working overtime as well, and I was so sick I didn’t even know it. Still to get worse, that end decided to become a bleeding site, so now the doctors at KT were freaking out. They only have band aides and an antique x ray machine. So a young doctor was sent to me to examine me. She stuck her fingers into my belly, and I am sure I felt her scratching my back with her fingers. Very painful indeed. She beamed when she saw me wince and said does that hurt? I responded with a groan. Her next question was “when did this pain start”? My reply was “when you stuck your finger into my stomach and tried to scratch my spine”. That seemed to go on deaf ears, because before I knew it, I was being pulled from my bed and being told to sit in the wheelchair as the ambulance was on its way to get me. Seems they need some reason to transfer to JB, and when I said I needed to talk to the doctor who had been seeing me daily, he advised they exhausted all their tools and resources and I was getting worse. I had all the symptoms of dengue fever, but my blood work did not match because of a serious infection that was overtaking and not responding to antibiotics. The bleeding made them realize I needed more than they could offer. So, dramatically, I sped off in the white Westfalia ambulance with sirens blaring – and right past my house to my new bed in JB. Just to step back to the early morning, Jeff arrived about 6 am, bringing me my computer to amuse myself in case I was feeling perky that day. He told me later that he walked into the ward to see me sitting in my bed, staring down a knot of nurses who were huddled in a corner at the far end of the room. His question to me was : WHAT DID YOU DO NOW?. I assured him that I had done nothing, but when he saw that my IV was no longer in my arm, he asked where it was. I told him that they were so sloppy putting the line in each time, and with the lovely purple welts all over both hands and wrists, I told them I would not let anyone put in another. You need to understand that these people are very timid, and a white woman taller than them THAT IS ME, BY THE WAY intimidates the heck out of them. I eventually let the doctor put in a new line before my rapid transport to JB. I guess there were many other incidents that amused him, but I forget them all right now. I know that he will remind me – he loves to recount each and every one of them whenever he has an audience. Also in the chaos of the ambulance ride, I was told I could not take my computer etc, and they would not let me drive my car home before I left. So, my district language officer was summonsed and he took possession of all until Jeff could get back to town. During all this, one of my teachers arrived, learning that I wanted apple sauce, and not knowing what it is, brought a huge back of apples. She was listening to this confusion about the car and volunteered her husband to take my car out to Gembut (my base school) Not being full of patience and grace, I asked her what exactly that would accomplish? She really did not know, but then I had an idea that I could dart out, drive my car home and maybe even pick up some clean clothes. The doctor overhead this and said NO, and then made it his mission to not let me out of his sight. Somewhere during this the teacher disappeared, so I definitely will have to apologise to her when I see her again.
This turn of events warranted another text message to Jeff. Bless his heart, after a very long day, he showed up at my bedside yet again in the new digs. He is apparently trying to compile some kind of a card with all my insane messages on it. I could not type well due to the pain killers and asked for some pretty crazy things- so he says,
Now, after several doctors taking their turn at poking, prodding, and checking every orifice, my blood pressure seemed to go out of control. I have never had high blood pressure in my life. It was registering 189 over 95. Slowly it began to drop but still not back to the usual 120 over 80 that was what the reading was in KT. I have tried to convince myself that the stress of everyone planning to do an emergency appendectomy, which I knew was not necessary was what drove it up.
Finally the doctor in charge advised that yes, all symptoms are dengue fever, but yes, the internal infection which they could not figure out made diagnosis difficult. Gastroenteritis was the decision made regarding the bleeding, so everyone backed off on my eating the local foods. The head doctor was pushing me to move to a private room so I could order food from the menu. Otherwise, I had to be given the yuck that came on the tray. I still had no appetite so I stayed put in my 4 bed room and my new very best friend Emma brought me apple sauce. I finally felt like I could eat something and didn’t even gag once as I licked the little container because there was no spoon. The other end of the body still had not caught up and it all blew out that end almost in the same consistency as it went in. Slowly, the bleeding stopped, the fever lowered, and I could drink water and eat a whole container of apple sauce. They agreed to let me out on the condition that Emma look after me as she and her husband live only about 10 minutes from the hospital. I loved my freedom. I loved life. I do not think I have ever been that sick in my life. Sadly, there are 3 other strains of dengue fever. I will never get this one again, but don’t want to test to see how I would do with the others. Emma and Travis took me shopping today, where I picked up all sorts of prepared NORTH AMERICAN foods that I can eat. There are great stores to buy this stuff and organic too. I guess I have to get off my lazy butt and begin shopping in JB from now on. It is only a 20 km drive, which most of you do every day in Canada. I just hate any driving I don’t have to do because I do so much all week. But I have been given the incentive with this nasty experience.
The very best of all this is the wonderful phone calls I have had from both of my kids. Ryan called when he had a minute before going back into saturation, and Jenn called often during the ordeal. Sorry I had to be so dramatic, but it definitely got me attention. Ryan had tried to convince me to take my vacation in May in Koh Samui Thailand. I kind of considered it, but since all this, definitely have decided against it. However, he thinks he might get out of sat earlier than he thought, and if so, will TAKE ME TO KOH SAMUI with him, (if I behave myself now) That could be a hard order to follow. But what I did when I got home is call the store where I bought my bed and ordered another. They will deliver it tomorrow. So I am ready for Ryan if he tries to get here soon. And if not, it is still ready when he does.
Now, I am exhausted, and have to hit the hay. Hope you enjoyed the dengue experience better than I did.
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