August-September 2005
I started reading the daily newspaper and found out that there is an epidemic in my city, its Dengue. My father was having fever and severe body ache for the last couple of days. The temperature was about 102F but soon that afternoon it rose to 104F and never came below 102F despite of taking paracetamol tablets. After he started to vomit, we thought its better to take him to hospital.
He stayed there for 10 days before returning home and just after 10 days I had fever. It read 104F and tablets could bring it down to only 103F. It was 4 in the morning and there was an exam the day after. In the morning I contacted few teachers and talked to them about my situation. They said its better to take the exam as there are issues with Admit card.
That evening about 6 my temperature went up to 105F and I was feeling very uncomfortable, the tables were not bringing temperature anywhere below 104 and I said to my parents its enough, better to take me to hospital. They did take me to hospital which had only 1 bed left, somehow of all the patients, I got in, around 10PM I got the bed and mum dad had to leave, the passes were yet to be made which would allow them to stay with me.
Next day I woke up as early as 6AM. I saw a nurse beside me and asked her out for a date. Errrr.... no I wasn't that ill, I just asked for the thermometer. I was hot, damn hot, the temperature was 106F and at that time I thought I am dead! Anyway, being mentally strong I didn't feel the fever much, I didn't look physically weak either. The temperature continued to stay above 104F for the next 4 days. The platelet count dropped to 42thousand and the ICU bells started to ring.
It was probably the 5th day when I was showing some improvement and then everything went wrong. At night the intravenous on my wrist came off as I switched sides during sleep resulting in blood to flow out of my body, freely! Somehow my father woke up before it was too late, he woke up and saw the bed sheet all red. He saw blood flowing out of the intravenous. He knew how to stop it as he was in my place couple of weeks back. I woke up after some time and was feeling very weak, I asked what happened, why are nurses around and father told me everything. I escaped death due to loss of blood!
The next day I spent sleeping, was not my usual self, never felt that weak ever in my life, my cousin sister came to see me and I wasn't able to talk properly. Wasn't able to laugh at jokes of Raju Srivastav or Sunil Pal either! The atmosphere was cagey, 1st time I felt like I have been put in some hospital!
Next day I got better and after 4-5 days the temperature finally came down and became stable around 99F. The doctors felt its safe to say bye to me and I returned home. In this period, I missed 4 exams, something to cheer about. After 3 days I took the English exam. After all this happened, whenever I get fever of say 102F, I don't feel a thing, I carry on with my usual routine and a tablet does the trick, something good that dengue did to me!
