Sunday, January 04, 2009

Month Long Ailment, a Sprained Ankle and 5 kg less

This tale began from late Nov 2008, when it was a hectic time to sum up 2008 in reports, plan for activities for Jan 2009, pack personal stuff for moving and preparing for the China trip.

After the long days and late nights, a cold was brewing even on the night (20th Nov) when my group and I had our year end makan gathering at my house. After an incredulous 8 hours of packing 14 boxes (21st Nov), the cold decided to come out of hiding and necessitate a visit to my doctor before flying off to China the next day (22nd Nov).

In the coolness of Chinese winter, the cold bided its time. With a combination of cold mineral water, oily and salty food, the environment was taking its toil on the digestive and immune system. Cough and a mild gastric flu, both accomplices of the cold, came in defiance of the amount of herbal tea consumed, (22nd Nov - 4th Dec) with a sprained right ankle to top it up (2nd Dec).

Upon touch down (4th Dec), things weren't exactly fine, so another visit to the doctor was necessary. Since the long planned chalet was due (5th Dec - 8th Dec), there was no way to stop the inevitable, but only prolonged suffering. A 5 days' dose of stronger antibiotics was prescribed but was accidentally consumed in 3 days as I forgot to bring the box with instructions attached. Of course, with little rest and late nights, the cold/flu continued unabated. The feeling of the sprained ankle lingered as well during the chalet.

Returning to work in a weakened state (9th Dec - 19th Dec) would only mean less than optimum performance and slower rate of recovery. True enough, the flu shifted into high gear and devastated the entire system in the form of a long, silent and mild gastric flu with lungs full of phlegm attached. The cough also sounded bad and although there was no ache with the application of medicated wine, the feeling of a weakened ankle persisted. With a delicate digestive system due to the gastric flu, recovery would be even much slower since the system cannot take too much stuff at any one time.

The infrequent dosage of panadol flu tablets, lacto fort and some tablets for phlegm meant a long and slow process of recovery. Till now (4th Jan), the feeling of a sprained ankle can still be felt even though the ankle has healed, and the occasional dry cough with some phlegm will still rear its head to remind me that my body succumbed to the flu virus relatively unchecked. Yes, the spoils of the war between the virus and my immune system was a loss of 5kg and a frail look as a result.

Maybe next time, I would be better prepared and my immune system would be stronger without much assistance from antibiotics.

Footnote: The main reason for my resistance to see the doctor a 3rd time was due to my incorrect intake of the stronger dosage of antibiotics, which resulted in incomplete recovery and the possibility of the virus gaining resistance/immunity towards it. Besides, my body needed to learn to fight the virus the slow and natural way.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My goodness!!!!

Didn't know you had been thru so much...

Glad to see you're getting better now =)

10:52 pm  

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