The Full Derwin
A colleague is recovering from the trifecta of illnesses combination of Dengue, H1N1, and Bird Flu. When some colleagues found out that he had all three, they called it the “Full Derwin.” I’m flattered to have the combination of three illnesses named after me. 😀
We’re thinking of having a “I survived Dengue, H1N1, and Bird Flu” t-shirt made up.
The Bad
The pain from the Trifecta is excruciating. You can literally feel every joint in your body; every vertebrae, every knuckle, every tendon and the entire eye socket. To roll over in bed was an agonizing process where the pain flared up and down my spine.
The fever closed in on 40 Celsius or 104 Fahrenheit. Food tasted horrible. Drinking fluids only made a trip to the bathroom necessary. And perhaps most painful of all was the slow, burning flow of urine.
One of the remedies is to drink Papaya leaf juice, which is a bitter, sour leaf juiced up. I drank as everyone told me it would help but I haven’t been able to look at a papaya ever since.
How Lucky I was
Regardless of the pain, I survived. Over 1,100 people in Delhi alone died from H1N1.
Best weight loss ever ( I was gaunt afterwards);
I was in a bed with air conditioning and not on the street;
I had medical care;
The hospital sent someone to our apartment to take blood samples;
I had a loving family look after, albeit from a distance;
I had an ayah look after me when the family was at school;
I had an employer who did not rush me back to work;
I have a job that has sick days built in to my contract (for a lot of people, you don’t get paid if you don’t work);
I had vitamins to take;
I had a laptop with a wi-fi Internet connection where I binged on movies, Shark Tank, and Bar Rescue.
So, as bad as the Trifecta was I still consider myself blessed. As humans, we all get sick but not everyone is fortunate enough to have the care that I had.
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