Night of the Living Dead (Jane)

• Rjdemp's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Manila

Trip Start Jun 22, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 04, 2013 Next
Entry

  Manila, Luzon, Philippines
Sunday, December 21, 2008

On Tuesday morning I noticed my throat didn't feel right.  Just a little tingle but I know that's how it always starts.  Later in the office I started to feel tired and slightly feverish.  That's when everyone started handing me whatever medications and rememdies they had all been taking.  There were the US pharmaceuticals with familiar names and there were the Chinese medicines with pictures of old bald men and writing I couldn't decipher.  Bee Ling gave me an herbal tea concoction. I took a variety of different items and threw them in a zip lock for later.  Tonight we had a fairwell dinner to celebrate a successful system conversion.  It was at Valentino's which served us a very nice Italian dinner in a private room that looked like it was part of someone's house.  The meal was excellent but I was feeling worse and worse.    By the end I was ready to jump in bed and sleep off whatever was trying to get me.  If only it was that easy.  I had horrible chills all night and none of the medications I was given had a drug in them to make me drowsy.  Because I couldn't get comfortable I couldn't sleep.

I was determined to get myself back to Manila on Wed morning.  I knew the illness was just going to get worse and I figured if I didn't drag myself home soon I might not be able to get myself home for a while.  I didn't even shower or eat before checking out of the hotel.  I just threw everything in my bags and got to the airport.  Thankfully, everything went smoothly and I was on the plane and heading home on time. I slept the whole trip except when they served lunch.  One thing I notice when I'm sick is I don't lose my appetite.  Somehow I always manage to eat. 

At the airport in Manila Fher was waiting to pick me up and take me home.  I went directly to bed and slept for 3 days. I felt too weak to even drag myself to the doctor.  And I learned an important lesson.  Because I didn't have a lot of any one medicine on hand, I ended up experimenting with a combination of US pharmaceuticals and Chinese traditional medicines in order to stop coughing, put myself to sleep, break the fever, etc...  What I managed to do was create some sort of toxic soup in my stomach and start WW3 between the US and Chinese.  I don't know which side was winning but Jane was definitely losing.

At some poing the fever broke and I thought I was going to get better.  Then on Saturday morning I woke up at 3 am with a horrible sinus headache.  So bad I wanted to die.  No normal pain reliever would make it go away.  As soon as the Healthways clinic opened in the morning we were there.  I needed drugs quick.  But you don't just declare your symptoms and get a prescription.  They wanted blood work done first which took an hour to process.  It was agony. For days afterward my head and throat were congested.  The anitbiotics were working but slowly.  I felt spacey and I couldn't think straight (some say I never could).  Preparations for Christmas got thrown aside.  That would all just have to wait.  I even missed the office Christmas party at the Embassy which the folks in Singapore told me is the hottest club in Manila.  It was a costume party with a movie character theme.  Ana, Divinia and I were supposed to go as Josie and the Pussycats but they ended up short one pussy cat which kind of ruined the theme and disqualified them from winning a prize.  It was very disappointing since I was looking forward to it for months.

If I had thought about it some more I guess I could have gone as the theme "Night of the Living Dead".  No costume would have been required and I might have even won a prize for most convincing character protrayal.

 

Share

Previous Entry Next Entry