Me and My Dengue Fever

I’m so sorry to all my friends here because I haven’t update my blog or just say hi for more than a week and the only reason to explain it’s because I was been attacked by dengue fever bitten by infected Aedes aegypti mosquito that brought dengue virus.

I was get fever one day before (march 6 at afternoon I was transferred to the hospital from the clinic) but I didn’t realize the dengue symptoms until with a great deal of pain for two days one night and much weakness, so I decided going to clinic for just checking up what’s going on with me. Yes…go to the clinic! Why? Because I was stubborn guy…(well is more stupid, I guess…) about things like this…and this is the first time for the last 10 years I never going to doctor or just take a pil if I get sick..any of sick. I am so good deal with the painful, headache, fever or other illness. But, not for this one! God tellin’ me “Okay…you wanna fight? I give you the fight…Deal with this!”, and…Kabooom!! Just 2 days and one nite, I can’t hold on anymore…

So, on my first blood test at the clinic’s lab also revealed that my platelets – the cells that allow blood to clot and prevent hemorrhaging – had dropped to almost half what doctors consider the minimum normal level. They weren’t low enough for me to be hospitalized for transfusions, fortunately, but they were low enough to earn me daily blood tests just to make sure.

Other things, after 2 days in hospital, I don’t know what..that because of love or something else my brother, Roni. He also get high fever too (it’s maybe bee gees fever…:D ) and stay with me on the same room, so…here we go… welcome to The Dengeu Party.

Now, after 7-8 days in my ‘Home Run’ (hospital) I am not completely recovered yet but, I wrote this just in hours after leaving hospital with my cigar and coffee…you know what? Because not a single medicine I brought from hospital…so, cigar and coffee is the best medicine in the world for me. And like ussualy…it’s gonna be alrite!

You ask what is dengue fever?

It’s transmitted by mosquitoes: not the Anopheles, which carries malaria, but the Aedes— especially, the Aedes aegypti, describe as a “domestic, day-biting mosquito that prefers to feed on humans.” There are two strains of dengue. Regular dengue fever (DF) produces fever, headache, back ache, joint pains, nausea, eye pain and rash. Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) is nastier and potentially deadly:

Dengue hemorrhagic fever is characterized by a fever that lasts from 2 to 7 days, with general signs and symptoms that could occur with many other illnesses (e.g., nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and headache). This stage is followed by hemorrhagic manifestations, tendency to bruise easily or other types of skin hemorrhages, bleeding nose or gums, and possibly internal bleeding. The smallest blood vessels (capillaries) become excessively permeable (leaky), allowing the fluid component to escape from the blood vessels. This may lead to failure of the circulatory system and shock, followed by death, if circulatory failure is not corrected.

There is no vaccine and no specific medication for dengue. Cases of DHF in particular require rapid hospitalization and fluid replacement therapy for the patient to pull through. This requires, obviously, a medical infrastructure that permits rapid hospitalization, not to mention hygienic hospital conditions, never a given anywhere in the world.

Mosquitoes are the only vector of the disease, meaning that anyone who contracts it in a hospital environment likely did so from mosquitoes hanging out there. The best way to prevent dengue, therefore, is to reduce mosquito breeding opportunities and infestation settings like standing water. In the immediate, the authorities in Jakarta (and presumably other places as well) are carrying out a fumigation campaign with pesticides. At the same time, it seems that the country was also insufficiently prepared to deal with a disease that has been endemic for a long time. [andsisko, inspiring mosquito]