All By Myself

Getting sick is not my cup of tea. Heck, it's not anyone's cup of tea. Last week was the first time that I got seriously sick since 2007 when I got an appendectomy.

Funny thing was, I was not down with something extreme like dengue or ebola. When I started feeling funny last Sunday, 3 days after my son was discharged from the hospital, I knew I got the bug that infected my son. When my temperature rose to what could be defined as high-grade fever, my in-laws kindly brought me to the hospital so I can be checked.

I was prescribed the same type of antibiotic that was given to my son by the hospital doctors after they ruled that I have upper respiratory tract infection. They sent me home with prescription medicines that would do a drug dealer proud. Unfortunately, it's either the dosage was too low or the virus or bacteria was not responding to the drug. By Wednesday, the fever would still not abate.

I returned to the hospital and went to see a specialist -- a pulmonologist. According to her, my URTI is actually acute exudative tonsillopharyngitis. Meaning, there's pus growing on my tonsils. She prescribed another set of antibiotics for the bug and more medicines to control my asthma as usually cough triggers the wheezing. My temperature went down the next day and 24 hours after, I was officially on the mend.

One thing I realized is that it's so difficult to get sick if you're by yourself. My husband was not around as he's out of town on a business trip. I needed a lot of sponge baths to control the fever so I had to do it by myself. I had to limit my contact with my son as I did not want him to have a relapse.

It's also important to keep yourself entertained. If I had it my way, I would've wrapped gifts or made headway on my complicated cross-stitch piece. But I could barely keep myself seated so I spent most of the time on bed. So it was either read or watch TV.

I whiled away the time by rewatching the Twilight series (which, for the life of me, I could not bear to watch any other day) and catch up on the shows on my favorite channels. I was so bored and also sore that due to my illness, I missed the festivities at work.

Upside of the whole thing was that I lost at least 5 lbs. Hopefully, I won't gain it right back. I've also (hopefully), lost my taste for sweet stuff (except for Mogu Mogu which was my only source of sugar) and just the other day, just had salad for lunch and deemed myself full.

I'm scheduled for an APE later next month. Hopefully, I'll get to know the real state of my health so I can make changes--hopefully, I'll have the strength to make them.