Experience is the Best Vaccine - Hello 2014!

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Are you people on your way to making good of your new years resolutions? How many of you even had one? :)

While everyone else was jumpstarting their year with all sorts of motivation, I on the other hand, was tossing and turning in my bed right from the first day of the year.  I unfortunately got hit with measles. I was fired up, not with conviction, but with extreme fever that plagued me for days. What a way to start!

It started with headaches, I thought my head just got mad at me again after sleeping three days at 3am straight. So I popped in some Biogesic and Alaxan to keep me up. But the fever wouldn't go, and was soon followed by some coughing. At first the doctor thought it was just an allergic reaction because of the change in weather, incidentally it was found in my urinalysis that I also had Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), and this can also cause fever.

A couple more days though the rashes started appearing in my face, and my eyes started getting watery.  One look from the doctor was all it took for her to decide it was measles. I'm not one to join trends, but hey looks like I just jumped the bandwagon!

A sharp increase in the number of measle-cases have been recorded in various parts of the metro during the Holiday season. Affected areas are Quiapo, Sampaloc, Tondo, Binondo, Sta. Cruz, Port Area and Sta. Mesa in Manila; Dagat-Dagatan and Bagong Barrio in Caloocan City; Talon 5, Talon 2, and Pamplona Uno in Las Piñas; and Longos and Tonsuya in Malabon. Outbreaks were also detected in Alabang and Putatan in Muntinlupa; North Bay Boulevard South in Navotas; Moonwalk and Don Bosco in Parañaque; Bagong Tanyag in Taguig, and Ugong in Valenzuela.
Reference: http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/01/06/1275567/doh-measles-outbreak-mm

I've been frequenting the Alabang and Muntinlupa areas quite a lot during the holiday season and I'm sure this is where I got the virus. :( The congested crowds on malls and supermarkets are a sure way to spread the virus to unsuspecting victims, like for those who didn't get vaccinated and those whose resistance isn't strong enough.

We're sure that I got vaccinated as a kid, but I haven't experience measles as a young kid and they say experience is still the best vaccine. So there. The doctor also advises another round of booster once children reach twelve years old for better protection, so for young mommies out there you can bear that in mind.

So how did we deal with it? Well what else can a sick kid do, yeh? 

    a. Stare at the ceiling - when you're delirious with fever, that's pretty much all you could really do. Aside from tossing and turning.
   
    b. Think, think, think - All involuntary processes are down and you have to think of every single thing you do: like stand up, take the first step, second step, third step. You even have to make a conscious decision to swallow your food and raise your arms and stuff like that. This would have to be one of the weakest I've ever been in my entire life, my whole body was just devoid of energy and I felt like a walking cabbage. Yiz. A walking cabbage, like you can push me into a vegetable salad and I won't be able to protest.
   
    c. Forced eating - and it's a pain! My whole mouth area was inflamed with little rashes as well, it was hard to chew, to swallow, to taste any thing with decency. It was a major effort to even force a few spoonfuls in my mouth during the first few days. Heck even water tasted awful! Kilabot-awful! But you've got to chug down lots and lots and lots of fluids if you are to get any better.
   
    d. Pray - or some collective mumbles and whispers to Papa Jesus. It sure helps to calm down the nerves.
   
    e. Cry - bahaha! Just kidding. But I did break into a few tears when Papa Ray came over to visit. I just felt so delirious and helpless and I couldn't help it.
   
    f. Secretly whisper thanks for having really kind parents, who took really good care of me the whole time . I rediscovered the magic of my nanay's back rub, and tatay's massage. They're the bestest things evah! And how tatay still insists that I count sheep before I sleep. Hahah.
   
    g. Kool-Fever - a curious thing was that my fever was focused only on my head. Like if you check my arms and legs I'm fine but when you touch my forehead I'm burning.  So I was starting to get worried something might happen to my head if the burning doesn't stop. So I got to use Kool Fever and it's my first time to use this patch. It's instant relief and it doesn't hurt the skin.
   
    h. Wait, patiently wait - Tigdas is ze boss. When it comes over there's no way you can shoo it away so you just let it run its course. Every morning I wake up monitoring where the rashes have gone because once it has covered your whole body, right down to the soles of your feet, then that's the time it stops. So you basically just manage the fever, and the coughing, and then let the rashes do their thing.
   

   When the fever is over, the worst is over - but you're still on house arrest until the rashes all subside. Eek! I'm at THAT phase right now. The fever was on and off for about a week, but now I'm quite better. Thank God I'm no longer a delirious cabbage. I got my laptop with me and my wits are somehow back on track again. My eyesight is still not as strong as it should be, but it will do. It just gets a bit frustrating because you know that the world isn't stopping just because you have measles.  Deadlines are filing, my thesis is knocking at the back of my head with pressure and I'm simply itching to move and get out.
    

However, I will have to be patient. Eventually this will end and before I know it I'm out and about and I'll be everywhere again. At the moment, I'm just trying to enjoy the house and getting to stay here. Just the other day I got to watch The Great Gatsby (great movie production) and Before Midnight (such a dorable couple, made me appreciate the magic of long term relationships more).
    

I'm also currently reading Manila Noir, a compilation of short stories set in different places in the heart of Manila. It's a fun book - in a morbid kind of way - but it has heart.

For some reason, I think it's a blessing that I had this now that I'm older because at least my body is stronger to handle it, and that I don't have a fulltime job because my boss will kill me if I take a 2-week leave meheheh. And that at least I have the assurance of not having this when I get pregnant in the future, heehee, who knows meh? :p

And a little perspective can't hurt. House arrest will still allow me to work somehow and will force me to just assess how I will spend the rest of the year. I just really hope I get well soooooonest, I miss my friends already so many people to meet up and so many goals to push push push forward! :)

Here goes resolution number one: take care of my health! It's priceless! I wish everyone a safe and healthy 2014! Get all those kids vaccinated geez!!

Taken on his visit, on my way to recovery! :D