Hot and Cold

It started with an Anopheles mosquito flying in the vicinity of Manipal. An innocent freshie who has been in Manipal for barely a month passed by. The mosquito found its target and landed on the freshie to do its job as a transporter of plasmodium. The freshie was unaware about what happened...

The "lucky" freshie turned out to be me. The intertwining fates of the mosquito and me did not turn out well at all. I was down with fever and I initially dismissed it as a normal fever. Moreover, I did admit that I overworked myself trying to cope with Anatomy at that time. So, I thought it was merely due to the lack of sleep. But the situation became worse when I started to have continuous chills at random moments of the day. But again, I thought that my body temperature shot up too high until it causes chills.

I had a pseudo-recovery period on Saturday morning. I woke up feeling rejuvenated and I was almost convinced that it was the heavy workload that led to my fever. However, the chills came back when it was blazing hot outside. It was that moment when I knew something was VERY wrong about me. I got Qi Ying to accompany me to the hospital and we waited for a good 2 hours before they did a blood test on me.

The results came back the next morning, confirming that I had malaria p. vivax. My heart sank because I know that this is not a trifling matter...well at least not in Malaysia. Initially, I was admitted to a semi-private room and they could not start treatment because further tests needed to be done. I was nervous because this was the first time I have ever been admitted in a hospital and this is one of the "first-timers" one would rather experience in their home country.

Much to my relief, I was shifted to a private room the same evening I was admitted. It was a little uncomfortable sharing room with a total stranger and the windows were WIDE open in the semi-private room. Come on, imagine if another mosquito flew in and bit me again!

The first night was a hellish one as I had chills and instantaneously followed by a high fever. I had no appetite to eat at all. The following nights were not really great too as my blood pressure fell until I needed to be hooked to an IV fluid. But I am truly lucky to have the most amazing bunch of friends supporting and helping me throughout the whole stay in the hospital. Thanks guys. ;)

The only plus point about being stuck in the hospital was its television. I was so TV-deprived (We're so busy that we did not even have the time to look at the TV packages available here!), I did not mind watching the same episode of How I Met Your Mother and The Simpson 3-4 times!

But I really miss going to lectures and my "personal detachment" problem came back while I was recovering in the hospital. "Personal detachment" problem was something I faced when I initially came here. It is a problem where one is in disbelief that he or she is somewhere doing something. The feeling of disbelief is so strong that I felt like I was watching someone else's life pass by when it was really actually my own life passing by. It is really a complicated thing and it disappears when I get accustomed to this place. But the stay in the hospital brought back those feelings and now I have to learn to quell them again. T.T

I was discharged yesterday and I began attending lectures today. I was "warmly" welcomed with an Anatomy class test, which I totally botched because I almost fail it. =.= Sigh, I really need to conduct a post-mortem on Anatomy...I am really not reading the subject correctly. I am so tempted to google "How to study Anatomy" just for my own satisfaction. =P

"Stumble and fall...is the heart of it all...so when you fall down...just try again" =))