Of shingles, gastric, dreamz, and fever

Woah, last week was terrible…

Well, I had rashes at my back for quite sometime, since the last chemotherapy treatment (which is last last Tuesday), doctor said it was because of the prednisolone pills which I take daily plus the fact that my immune system has drop to an all time low. The rashes looks really terrible, but since it doesn’t itch nor hurt, I didn’t bother to visit a skin specialist or do any treatment on it, and yeah, last time I had it too, and it did go away, so why shouldn’t it this time… that’s what I thought.

So, last week something weird happen, the rashes at the back seem to have come to the front and I was starting to have a slight fever. WOahhhkay, that shouldn’t happened I thought to myself, but still did not worry too much about it. Visited the doctor again the next day of the discovery, and the doctor was advising me to go and check up with a skin specialist, just in case anything happens. Problem is, the skin doctor he recommended isn’t in the hospital during that time as he has another clinic, being the super lazy me, I decided to ‘ponteng’ the check up, since I thought the skin wasn’t much of a problem.

Then Friday came, was still having a fever and mother was getting worried, off to the hospital again we go. Well, before the doctor said anything he decided to check my rashes again, and too his and our horror, he said I had herpes (Okay, honestly speaking, I did not worry yet, mainly because I have no idea what that was, only when he said admitted I when ‘gulp’). (Chinese people call it the ‘snake’ because it actually coils around your body, and if it actually completes one circle I am dead, or so they say, urban legends?) And I had to be admitted to the hospital. Goodness, not staying in the hospital again, I dread that place, but I guess that’s a punishment for being so ignorant of checking up with a skin specialist…

*For those who want to check what herpes is on the internet, type “shingles” instead, as if you type “herpes” you will most probably get results that say it’s a sexually transmitted disease, NOOOO I did not had that. That’s because shingles are also called ‘herpes zoster’. For those who are just too lazy to check what it is, basically it’s the reactivation of chicken pox. And no, even if u had chicken pox if I want to pass it to you I can buahahaha, but if you did not had chicken pox before, then you will get chicken pox only though.

Got admitted and waited like forever again for the skin doctor to see me. Thank God that Reverend Chuah and Teacher Derek were there to keep me company awhile, and yeah, mom, too, ha-ha. Around 5 something in the evening the skin specialist came, had a look, confirmed it as shingles, prescribe antibiotic pills and how to treat the infected area with cream and bandages. I was starting to wonder why in the world must I get admitted to the hospital if it was just ‘pills’. So I asked him:

“Doctor, does that mean I can go home now?”

Doctor: “Yeah, if you want to.”

Me thinking in my head: “So what am I doing on a hospital bed =.=…”

Later the nurse told me that if it was another skin specialist that check up on me, he would definitely put me on antibiotic drips, that’s why Doctor Rudy, my hematologist doctor, asked me to be admitted. I was about to jump with joy with the fact that I don’t need to stay overnight in the hospital when Doctor Rudy told me that I better stay for one day, in case of any side effects or stuff like that and it would be a good time for mom to learn how to apply the cream and the bandages. Okay, better be safe than sorry. And as I was lying on the bed, I was like, okay, I should have just asked the nurse to prick me and get my blood instead of putting one whole chemo-pod thingy on me. Bah~ wasted…

But that night sleeping was terrible…

Not only was my shingles starting to hurt like crap, my gastric was also hurting, and I had fever, another 3 hit combo like last time (which was fever, some infection which opens a wound that couldn’t heal for some days, and ulcers in the tongue). Couldn’t sleep for the whole night, sigh. And even if I did manage to sleep, I woke up one hour later, although it seems like I had already slept for 5-6 hours. Well, guess when you’re suffering time somehow purposely slows down, and when you’re having fun, time goes super fast. Hope it could be reverse though, that way I could “seem” to get much sleep during college life even though the sleeping time was darn short.

And that’s not the worst part, when you’re having a fever, dreams tend to appear in loops (yeah, not again). (Well, I didn’t dream during the night I was in hospital with shingles though, that’s because, I couldn’t actually sleep that night) So, to those who are having fever my advice to you would be: please don’t go and watch action-packed movies or movies that you would die if you did not go and watch in the cinemas (unless the movies you are dying to watch is something that goes so slow and boring, than yeah, by all means go ahead). Watch something like “Seabiscuit”, not to say is a bad movie, it really is good, but it doesn’t have any super fast paced movements, unless erm the horses just move too fast for you. I remembered the first time I suffered a fever because of chemotherapy, I had just watched “Alien vs Predator” and “Species 2”, yeah, imagine the horror. Dreaming of being some lorry driver that has to send alien eggs to some unknown place that I can’t and never reach, having 3 annoying ‘sidekicks’ in the lorry which I have no idea come out from which movie, and even as I was thinking why the heck must I work as a lorry driver that will be soon under attack by aliens I can’t seem to get out of the dream. Okay, this time around I watched “Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift”, it wasn’t so bad, just watching cars zoom by. Problem is, the same cars zooms by for the whole night I was sleeping, and I could only see trails of lights of the cars, can’t even see the model of the car or anything else for that matter. Talking about dying of boredom, but at least I don’t need to work or anything, just need to strain my eyes trying to know what model the car was…

Thank God the light of dawn eventually came…

Manage to able to have some sweet rest eventually when I got home, somehow the gastric pain went away, the shingles didn’t hurt so bad, and the fever could always be suppressed by panadols. Ah, but I missed all the good events that Saturday and Sunday: the worship workshop in the morning, Li woon’s gathering, Suan Aik’s farewell and a band gig on Sunday night.

Then again, being able to rest at home sweetly… after suffering so many sleepless night and pain, is more than I can ask for.

Sometimes things like these tend to make you ask God why? Why must I go through all these things? Why can’t I just be like some normal dude who goes to college or university? And before I want to ask some more whys… I remembered who can compare with God’s wisdom? He knows what’s best, maybe I wouldn’t turn away from my old ways if I didn’t have this sickness? Perhaps I would still be spiritually too weak and filled with doubts? And even if I want to start complaining about all my sufferings to God, I’ll be reminded then… how about Jesus? He suffered and died a horrible death and rose again on the third day to set us all free from sin.

And that is more than enough to thank God for everything that has happened to me.