Fever dream.
The thing about having a little bit more anxiety than most is that I’ve almost always worked through the worst case scenarios — at least in theory. Some would argue that it’s the exact opposite of what I should be doing, but disaster planning in my head is calming. Meditative even. (Within reason, of course.)
Still, it’s one thing to be on top of the imaginary “crisis binder” in my head and another thing to be running the playbook in real life.
It started with a throbbing headache that came on strong in the middle of the day last Tuesday. I had overdone it on coffee earlier, so I figured I just needed to drink more water. But I started to get a little worried when the headache didn’t calm down and the joint pain started to settle in. By early afternoon, it was getting worse not better.
Some little niggling told me to skip the ibuprofen but we didn’t have any acetaminophen. I asked our nanny to help me call the pharmacy. But instead of sending me the fever/pain reducer I had asked for, they sent antibiotics (which I, of course, rejected). The nanny went to fetch Nicolas from school and I WhatsApped the neighbor to see if she had any extra Tylenol in her stash. After a middle-of-the-street handoff, I dragged myself back up to our apartment and crawled into bed.
By the time Nicolas came home from an afterschool playdate, I was damn near useless. Joe had left the day before for a work trip and I had to make a calculated guess: ask our nanny if she could spend the night and be a backup adult in case I got sicker or send her home and pray that I didn’t take a turn for the worse while I was solo parenting. That niggling told me better be safe than sorry.
She went home to fetch a bag and see her own kids for a bit. I somehow managed to get Nicolas fed and tucked into his bed before crawling back into my own.
The next couple of hours were a blur of chills, pain, and a fever that didn’t seem to be responding to the medicine I had thrown at it. And the thirst. I couldn’t stay on top of it no matter how much water and pedialyte I managed to suck down.
I took a COVID test. But it didn’t really surprise me when it was negative. Something told me I was dealing with a different beast.
By the time our nanny came back, I had already texted a friend to see if she thought I’d be a bother with an afterhours call to the on-call medical provider available to embassy families. She assured me I wouldn’t be. I talked to one of the nurses and later got a call from one of the docs. They named what I suspected: it sounded like it might be one of the mosquito-borne illnesses. I was to keep drinking fluids, stick with Tylenol, and call back if any of the truly scary symptoms showed up. The next day was a holiday, but they’d be sending one of the local labs out to take bloodwork in the morning and they’d be following me closely.
I slept most of the day Wednesday while our nanny took Nicolas out and tried to keep him entertained. And by 6 p.m. that evening, I had a confirmed diagnosis: Dengue Fever.
Dengue, aka “breakbone fever,” is no joke, as I was learning. And Thursday was a holiday for our nanny. I rallied and got Nicolas to school, slept all day, and rallied to get him home, fed (even if it was yogurt and cereal for dinner), showered and in bed. I rallied again to get him to school on Friday and myself into the Health Unit for another blood draw and exam before going home to tumble into bed again. As I said “have a good weekend” to our nanny on Friday evening, I knew I only had to make it another couple hours before Joe would be home and I could breathe a little more easily. I have never been so happy to hear the key in the front door lock than I was later that night.
I’m a prayer. But my prayers took on a different quality last week. Please let me be the only one infected. Please let this be as bad as it gets. Please just make the pain stop. There was no bargaining, only feverish begging.
It’s been almost a week since the onset of my symptoms. The fever has broken, the pains and throbbing headache are gone. I have an itchy rash but my appetite is slowly returning. I’m not out of the woods though. This is the point where my platelet count has to be watched even more closely to make sure it doesn’t dip too low. The doc just called to let me know that the we’ve-practically-become-BFFs phlebotomist will be by in the morning to collect another sample. (And I will be a gracious patient because he is good at what he does even if the result is me feeling like a human pincushion.)
It’s not over yet, but I’m still sitting in gratitude this evening. For our amazing nanny who didn’t bat an eye when I asked for extra help. For the friends who have checked in and who would have stepped in in a heartbeat if I had needed them to. For a husband and son who have tended to a very sick wife and mommy. And for the access to good healthcare and caring providers, which I don’t for one minute take for granted.
I don’t want to jinx it, but it could have been so much worse.
