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Wednesday, March 15, 2006 A continuation of the sick saga This is truely the one time that I've been as sick as I possibly can be. It started on last Friday, with a high fever (fried a few brain cells there...), chills and cold sweats, and myalgia. Thinking it's just one of those times where I have a high fever once every 1-2 years (and after a long long sleep and good nutritious food, I'll be fine), I just followed that and slept. A lot. Woke up the next morning, coughing out blobs of blood in mucky sputum. Gah! Does that mean I have a pulmonary embolus??? *frantically thinking if I have chest pain.* Thank goodness I don't have, so PE is unlikely. Maybe a nasty bout of pneumonia? *listens to chest* Nope, chest is completely clear. Not even a sound of creps or crackles or wheeze. Breathing is fine, not laboured. Hmm... blood tests? Nope, hate needles. Don't touch me with one. Being otherwise asymptomatic, I just rested over the weekend, with lots of water, sleep, paracetamol, and Clarinase (just in case...). Woke up on Monday for work. No voice. Barely a croak. Otherwise fine. No headache, no myalgia (body/muscle ache). So I thought, hey, today is the consultant ward round, and I can still do work, just not do much talking. So hey, why not goi to work? If I last the whole day, I might even be able to go to the gym later on! So in I went. And I then realised, as doctors, we not only use our non-verbal skills, but do lots of talking too! Even if not with patients, with others, nurses, colleagues, referrals, chasing blood results. And that Monday, everyone wanted to talk to the house officer. I don't know why. So yeah... went home with a drier throat, but lasted the whole day. Hurrah for me. Tuesday. Woke up with at least an on/off voice aka can still emit some sound which sounds remotely like words. Went for the ward round again, but not talking much. Went about my normal work and finished work at about lunchtime. Thank goodness, coz when I went for the X-ray meeting, the CT lady said I needed a doctor instead. Indeed. she was so true. And so, I decided to go back home to rest. Handed my bleep over to my dear buddy, Andrew, who kindly took it over without any qualms (then again, there wasn't much to do, coz i had finished what needed to be done). Went back home and slept. Not improved despite tons of water, cough lozenges, some Beechams cold relief, lots of honeyed water. Nada. Wednesday. Woke up to my alarm clock. Head feels heavy. Really couldn't face the day at work, plus I was on-call today as well. Why torture myself, especially when I'm sick, right? so, for the first time in history (I have never taken sick leave at work or in uni or at jc or sec sch. The only time I went missing from classes was because of competitions!), I took a day of sick leave. Warranted, no less. My colleagues were saying, I should have taken it from Monday. But anyway, today, I tried steam inhalation (didn't do much good, coz my nose became clogged up after lifting my head from the bowl of steamed water, must be because I forgot to put vicks drops in it), finished 2 bottles of honey (not much use for the sore throat, coz it's more painful than ever when I cough), slept the whole day away, strummed the guitar for a quarter of it (and figured out more chords for lavinge's and blunt's songs), had a bit more voice back (but sounding like a stuffed/croaking/housemates-say-husky-or-sexy voice). Guess what? Now I even have subconjunctival haemorrhages! Now I look scary with bloodshot eyes (as if I've just been drinking the night before and gotten hung-over), which won't go wawye till 7-14 days later, and I can't do anything about! Now THAT's gonna scare my patients even more now. Gah! And I'm on-call this weekend! Aha! But I've found something which actually makes my throat feel not-so-dry: Lo Han Guo. I swear by it. Alas, I've used the last of my supply. Let's hope this works tonight, and I will have a proper voice again by tomorrow. *crosses fingers and looks at the bed longingly* |