Dengue Fever

 Dengue Fever.
A personal narrative.

Monday. Midday. I felt a little lethargic and thought nothing of it. But by late afternoon I was really putting in some effort. The monitoring and managing of our climbing students required my full concentration. With the usual ‘finish the day strong’ mentality I made it through and didn’t assign much seriousness to my increasing exhaustion, rationalizing it was just a long week of work; time being relative and all. After closing up I got on my motor-scooter and rode the short distance home. I can’t remember much of the ride. I think I remember making it home. I obviously did because my next memory is a few hours later, shivering in bed. I was wrapped in the only winter outfit I had brought with me to Thailand, and I was curled up under two bed covers. The bed cover in our house is not lightweight as Jay prefers the very cold aircon action at almost all times. It being the tropics here it wasn't an unreasonable preference. However, that night I had her turn it off and refused to turn it back on. I remember this was because the pain from the cold air touching my body was too severe. I was sweating profusely and the evaporate effect was… how to describe it accurately… extremely fucking painful. 

My fever was burning me up but whenever anything cooling touched my skin I felt like it was literally a branding iron burning into my flesh. Even the slight temperature difference of evaporated sweat made me... act like a lil bitch (and as a feminist I mean I took it like a man, you know what I mean). Jay convinced me to place an ice towel on my head and I fought with her for a while until she threatened to take me to the hospital if I didn’t. I hate hospitals. Oddly enough after a minute of pain the ice pack on my head was quite nice, very very wonderful in fact. I believe it was so for two reasons. Firstly, I had a headache that could equal the worst of my migraines; the intensity was equivalent but not the same type of pain. It was a deep bone bruise pain rather than the exploding shrapnel of migraines. Secondly, I was so wrapped up under the blankets, in the tropics, with no aircon that my fever was roasting itself at over 39c and my body, or more specifically, my brain must have recognized the ice pack was necessary. My memory of the next dozen or so hours is without order or any kind of chronological reference. I became dissociated. Was I remembering from my own perspective or looking back at me from some omniscient place? I was in delirium, without doubt. I can recall a very vivid event at the crux of the fever. I was in so much pain that I curled into the fetal position and began chanting to myself. It could have lasted 5 minutes or hours, I don’t know and Jay isn’t sure either. Close to an hour was her best guess. For me it was an eternity, an outside of time experience. I remember I chanted, and chanted, and chanted, “Pain is a thought. It is not real. You are strong. You will win. Pain is only a signal. Your body is not cold. The cold is not painful. It is an illusion. You are stronger. Pain is only a thought…” and so on. I was hyperventilating while chanting and I think maybe the excess oxygen in my system helped me more than my mantra of perseverance. I am certainly convinced that breathwork is a bio-hack severely underutilized by the general population. Regardless of whether the attitude or the oxygen benefited me to a greater degree, the pain lessened and I conquered myself. I relaxed into the situation and accepted the remaining pain. I slowed my breathing. Embarrassingly I mumbled to myself “good boy… good boy…” as I regained some composure. Even as I said it I realized it could be seen as embarrassing, but the pain I was in, even when it was reduced to a manageable level, is not the kind of pain that has room for embarrassment. The pain wasn’t limited to my skin, or my head. My entire body ached, and specifically a few of my weaker areas; places I had injured prior or places that seemingly had less protections like joints and tiny muscle groups in the face and hands and feet, some places on the sides of my ribs were crying out especially loud. The specific locations aren’t as important as understanding that all I wanted was for it to stop. Eventually it lessened, but again, the time scale is vague at best. It was still dark out when I could breathe in something other than controlled gasps. The prayers belting out quietly from the distant neighborhood mosque signaled daybreak was close. Eventually the day arrived and I noticed how thirsty I was. I noticed the blankets, the pillow, and the mattress were drenched in a mess of sweat. I noticed Jay sitting next to me, having not slept while taking care of me. I had that irrational guilt of someone who needed to be taken care of. 

Tuesday. Morning. I think I may have fallen asleep. I was still shivering, I still had a fever and a headache and my body felt like it had been thrown into a muay thai fight for a round and a half . But I remember Jay was right there, caring for me. I think I may have slept. I think I may have fallen in love with her again too. I dozed on and off all through Tuesday. I was moderately better throughout the day and talked her out of taking me to the hospital. I really hate hospitals. I had thought the worst of it had befallen me… and it had, but in the way that a sledgehammer to the face is worse than a baseball bat to the spine. My bones, the marrow of my bones hurt. The Fucking Marrow. So, we stayed up all Tuesday night as well. I didn’t need to use the mantras or embarrass myself with attaboys, but it was far from pleasant. There might have been moments of intermittent sleep. Hard to say as I found myself having a hard time differentiating between dreaming and hallucinating. Eventually the muslim call to prayer signaled a new day again.

Wednesday. Daylight. We both got slightly more intermittent sleep after the break of dawn. I stayed in bed mostly, and was able to eat without dry heaving much and drink without nausea. When you can not sleep every day feels like three, so I felt as though a week had passed already. And, although I was feeling significantly better, comparatively, than Tuesday. Yet, once again, at nightfall like a creditor coming to collect, the pain returned. What had been my sin I thought to myself. I chose to sleep in the office so Jay could have a few moments of aircon and possibly get some more sleep for herself, the least I could do. I was still unable to feel the aircon on my skin but only because it was extremely uncomfortable, not debilitating. The reaction to cold that would whip my muscles into spasms and the feeling of ice needles piercing every nerve were gone, to be replaced with rough grit sandpaper and shivers. I was incredibly hungry, and incredibly tired. It was the kind of primal sensation said heavily, way deep down, ‘sleep now, for we hunt when you wake’. As I drifted in and out of sleep my hunger built, my desire for life returned. I had urges to go ride my bicycle, go swim, go climb, I wanted to be active, to have a full experience of the day (when it rolled around again after the call to prayer). It was this celebration in the marrow of my bones telling me I was alive and life wasn’t meant to be spent in bed. Life wasn’t meant to be spent resting. Drinking water…. Except, that is exactly what I needed to be doing.

Thursday. Midday. I fell asleep, properly asleep, at 8am and made it to noon. It was glorious. The delusional state of existence had finally passed, I stayed in bed drinking water, eating, resting… all the things life is meant to be spent doing after an event like Dengue. I made it through the day, like a man hungover, but happy. I had a rash on my scrotum and when I peed it felt like razor blades and was of a viscosity that a person should never witness come from themselves. But I made it through Thursday.

Friday. Sometime after the midnight of Thursday. All the days had been folded into one event. I fell asleep a little after dark but then woke up and lay staring at the wall, utterly exhausted and sore. The pains were so odd. The aches didn’t make sense. My eyebrows felt sunburnt. Extremely sunburnt; not even sunburnt, but burnt as if the skin had been crisped black and charred to the bone by some chemistry lab accident or something. I wasn’t able to touch them, or move them in any kind of expression. It was too painful to even be funny. The welcoming call to prayer led to a final blurry day of rest and recovery in bed. The pains were always less severe during the daylight hours, and Friday day was the most endurable I’d had all week. Not pleasant but endurable. Friday afternoon just felt like I had a moderate flu, which in comparison was a beautiful, beautiful feeling. Finally, about 96 hours after initial symptoms I began feeling like I could function in life again. 

Some facts about Dengue: 

Dengue is a blood borne virus known as the ‘break-bone’ disease. There are five serotype strains with many factors contributing to symptoms and severity, but the initial infection often has such minor symptoms as to be mistaken as a common flu. However, each additional occurrence is more severe than the preceding one with the final instance of infection having the highest fatality rate. Dengue is spread by the female Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes (they have ‘tiger’ stripe bodies) which can only transmit if they are infected. The incubation period for both mosquitoes and humans are typically a week long but not more than two weeks. After incubation the virus can disrupt bodily systems from a few days to a couple weeks. I was lucky at 96 hours. These mosquitoes feed most often at dawn, dusk, and during the day in shaded areas. Symptoms of Dengue can last from a few days to a couple weeks. Dengue was in the top three most severe pains I have experienced and I will, without hesitation, ask Jay to immediately bring me to the hospital if I ever have it again.