Quarantine

During the pandemic, I never experienced being quarantined as the time that I had COVID, it was during the Omicron phase and almost the whole household had it. Two years after, I managed to catch the dreaded virus but asymptomatic. Nevertheless, I had to isolate myself to ensure that those with comorbidities don't catch it.

It just sucks that I had to test positive, 3 days before Christmas and quarantine is for 5 days. This means that I'll be missing the Christmas festivities--lunch with my dad on Christmas Eve and lunch with my husband's extended family on Christmas Day. Not to mention missing the Misa de Gallo at 430AM--which was my pledge to finish to give thanks for my son's healing.

I tested myself as two of my team members tested positive. The first one tested last Monday but the day after, I didn't feel any symptoms so I didn't test. But on Friday morning, my other team member confirmed that she has it so I had no choice but to check. Lo and behold, two lines. It wasn't the same excitement that I felt when I also saw two lines years ago (e.g. pregnancy tests).

I was in the office then so I was quickly sent home and I ensconced myself in our room. Hubby had no choice but to set up a bed in his home office and the kids can't go near me. 

I'm pretty optimistic about this though. I've been running myself ragged the past few weeks with all the parties, office deliverables and what have you. Hopefully, I can spend the time sleeping or watching my pending KDramas or cleaning our room. I'm also praying that I don't develop any symptoms and remain asymptomatic.

Before my youngest got sick, we planned this to be an unforgettable Christmas as we were supposed to fly for the US last Dec. 18 and spend Christmas with my mom and my siblings. It will still be a Christmas to remember as for the first time, I'll be spending it all by myself (cue Celine Dion's song).

So for all what's worth, Happy Holidays, everyone! And may your celebrations be virus-free!

Barely Breathing

My recent prescription

When I said in my blog introduction that I'm asthmatic since I was a child, I'm not kidding. I've been hospitalized before because of it and I do not want it to happen again.

Ever since I returned from the US last December, I haven't stopped coughing. I've visited a doctor twice: one on Dec. 22 and the other on Jan. 14. The December doctor noted (this was at the Asian Hospital ER) that I just arrived from the US a couple of weeks before my consultation and immediately had x-rays done. Since I was not showing any signs of infection, he just prescribed Strepsils for Dry Cough. I went home relieved and bought my first batch of lozenges. Unfortunately, even if I'm sucking on those tablets like crazy, the cough still won't abate.

I went back to the hospital on January and this time, visited a pulmonologist. After listening to my breathing and my lungs and considering my other symptoms, she ruled that I'm having an asthma attack. I was surprised as I was barely wheezing but apparently, the cough is already a symptom in itself. Since my attacks have been not as frequent lately, I have not been taking my maintenance, moreover, I'm not comfortable in taking in medication. I just use my inhaler whenever I'm having an attack.

So, she gave me steroids, asthma medication and something for my cough. I took those things as prescribed but the cough, though it abated a bit, still won't go away.

When I had a bad attack last weekend which kept me in bed the whole time, I succumbed and found another pulmonologist yesterday. This time around, she added to my medication as noted in my prescription above. I was shocked when I saw it but since my symptoms were not going away, she decided to aggressively treat my asthma. It was that or be hospitalized due to bronchial spasm which my lungs will I will end up with if I don't treat my current condition. I was also given antibiotics as the lethargy that I was feeling which made me take half the day off last Friday was already a throat infection, which exacerbated my cough.

I've also been ordered to rest for another day. Hopefully, I will get better soon. I miss walking and biking. I want my life back!

Asthma is a condition which I have to live with for the rest of my life. I just have to learn to live with it and not let it rule my life. Unfortunately, having a low RBC count is not helping my case. I'm still having tests done for that as I'm perennially anemic which means that oxygen is also not circulating properly in my blood. Thus, it was not a surprise that I feel faint whenever I push my heart rate (in fact, in my last Executive check-up, the nurse made me life down after my treadmill as I was quite pale and my blood pressure was dropping too fast). Let's just see where that will go.

In the meantime, I hope this latest batch of meds will do the trick!

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.

P is for Pneumonia

My son has been struggling with his cough since early this week. His cough was so bad that his school sent him home Tuesday morning and he was made to rest for another day.

He returned to school on Thursday and come Friday evening, he was complaining that he was not feeling well. I woke up around midnight with Basti burning with a 39.1C fever. I panicked as it was the first time ever that he sported such high temperatures. We gave him Paracetamol which he fortunately was able to take and we went back to sleep.

The next day, I had to go to school to give my final exam and I immediately went home afterwards. When I saw that Basti's temperature was not improving, we brought him to the ER at Asian Hospital.

I was initially hesitant to do so as my recent experience with them was not pleasant at all (e.g. we were here last month when Basti was complaining of an ear ache and the ER doctors had no beside manners and the ER nurse gave my son Ibuprofen without asking whether he ate something. It was not surprise that he started throwing up afterwards). But since I was anxious already, we hurriedly brought Basti to Asian.

A few minutes after we were ushered into a cubicle in the ER, a Dr. Carlos Vicente Gabriel checked Basti and I was very happy with the way he did the examination. He certainly knows how to handle children and he was definitely a big improvement compared to the previous pedia resident that looked at Basti before. After a couple of tests, it was found that Basti has pneumonia and since it was at the early stage, we were sent home with an assortment of medicines that will do a drug dealer proud.

However, Basti could not tolerate the oral medication and would throw up everything that was given to him. I called the ER spoke with Dr. Gabriel. I mentioned that we will be returning and would request for confinement. He readily agreed and waited for us to arrive to process our admission.

The admission process was also hassle-free. I was very pleased with the nurse when he was able to administer the heplock with no fuss at all and with no need of a repeat. I was also amazed with Basti as he insisted on observing when we told him to look away. He did not scream although he did voice out his pain. He also stared with wonder when they extracted blood from his arm. He barely flinched when he saw the needle enter his skin.

Unfortunately, his pedia, Dr. Clemente, no longer has a clinic at Asian so we went by his referral, Dr. Morada, the same pedia that admitted him a couple of years ago also due to pneumonia. He was able to see Basti earlier today and prescribed more medicines which would hopefully kill the bacteria, thereby bringing down his temp and ultimately, letting us go home in the fastest period of time.

I decided to stay in the hospital every night with no assistance from the yaya to take care of my son. It's our bonding moment and something that I hope he would remember when he would start questioning my love for him when I practice my usual tough love stance.

Colds

I was proud that I didn't catch any cold during the first few months of my pregnancy. Now that I'm in the homestretch, I end up with a nasty cold.

I thought at first it was allergies. I woke up with a sore throat and when we went to Dita to have lunch with Daddy on his birthday, I started sneezing continuously and my nose began running. I thought it was the dust and cigarette smoke that got to me. But now that I'm home, it's as bad and my throat is sore and I feel like I'm going to end up with a fever. :(

I don't know where I caught the cold as Leo's as healthy as a horse. I can't remember coming in contact with anyone last night who has a cold when we watched Hairspray. Fortunately, I'm still on vacation leave so I can still get enough rest to recuperate and get rid of this cold. I pity my baby as my sneezes tend to be violent and causes my stomach to contract. Hopefully, he's still ok in there.

As I'm not sure what cold medication to take, I'll just drown myself in orange juice (Florida Naturals!) and water and get plenty of sleep. Leo and I decided to sleep in tomorrow and just go to the St. James Bazaar late in the morning. Thank goodness it's raining tonight so we can do away with the aircon when we sleep. Being on my 8th month, I have additional 50% (?) blood volume in my body thus I always want the temperature cold.

I do hope this is gone tomorrow. I still want to go to the bazaar and finish my Christmas shopping! I only have a few items left in my list.

Overwork Addict

I think I'm addicted to overworking.

I can go for weeks working for 12 hours. Skipping dinners as I would get home past dinnertime and I'm so exhausted that I'll just drop in bed and wake up really hungry but would lose my appetite when I would see the food.

After all that meal skipping, I should lose weight but I compensate for the skipped meals by eating unhealthy carbs.

As mentioned yesterday, I was sick last Monday and when I went to the doctor today, I was diagnosed with Upper Respiratory Tract Infection prescribed with 1-3 days of rest with amoxicillin and a lozenge for my sore throat. Lots of fruits and juices, so there.

I should take it easy if I am to meet the challenges that are thrown to me at work. I have to be healthy if I am going to lead my team to meet our targets this year. Moreover, my boss from group will be arriving next week so I have to be up and about!

On a different note, Ramielle Malubay got voted out of American Idol today. Can't say I'm heartbroken over it. Her performance these past few weeks leaves much to be desired and the other contestants really outshone her (well not all). I especially love David Cook. He reminds me of Daughtry but he has his own style. Others like David Archuleta but he sounds so boyband. Let's just see.

Sick, Again

I took half the day off as I was feeling under the weather. Actually, I was already sick as of Monday. It started with a sore throat, became a cold and now accompanied with a bad cough. Fortunately, no fever. However, before I could file for sick leave, my one down sent me a text message saying that he'll be on sick leave as well. Being month end last Monday, somebody needed to supervise the team to ensure that targets are met. Unfortunately, not only was my one-down on leave, the one-down of my one-down was on sick leave as well. Talk about an epidemic.

I thought I could rest on Tuesday, but my one down was still sick. Ok, another day of drudgery. Good thing he returned to work today so I was able to turnover some urgent items and I had the driver pick me up before lunch so I can go home and rest.

Leo bought me some lunch from Cibo and I spent the rest of the afternoon on bed resting. My mother-in-law told me to get some rest as I'm overworking already. I do agree with her though. 2010 is such a long way off (sigh).