Dang it, dengue!

Well, I was doing pretty well health-wise. I got sick on New Year's Eve and was nauseous for like a week and I've had a few bouts with the hershey squirts since coming down here, but generally I've kept pretty healthy. No trips to the clinic, the hospital; nothing that had me worried about my safety. I was doing good.

Then I got dengue.

Now, I've learned a lot about dengue since I was told I had it, (and on a sidenote, I was actually told "You had dengue" not, "You have dengue.") so before you start thinking I'm gonna kick the bucket before I get out of this country, let me give you a rundown of what I learned.

Dengue is transmitted by the Aedes Egypti mosquito, and it most commonly bites during the day. There are something like four strands of dengue, and once you've contracted one "type" of dengue, you cannot get the same type again. However, if you do contract another one of the strands, your symptoms can possibly be worse.

There is a less severe dengue and a more severe dengue. The symptoms are very similar except that in the more severe case, you basically bleed a lot more. Because blood platelets are low, blood doesn't clot and you end up bleeding kind of uncontrollably, such as from the face.

I got the cheap kind of dengue, or the classic dengue as they call it here in Nicaragua. My symptoms included sudden fever, joint pain, fatigue, bone pain, headache, fatigue, pain behind the eyes, fatigue, and....fatigue. If you didn't notice, fatigue was the most prevalent symptom. I got a fever on a Monday, and that was pretty bad. I just wanted to curl up and not do anything and stop sweating. I don't usually get that feverish that quick, and I had been feeling so-so over the previous week, so when the fever hit, I decided to head to the clinic.

So I survive the night and go into the clinic on Tuesday morning, give the doctor my symptoms. They do some blood tests and find that my blood platelets are low (162,000 per whatever), but not quite below normal (less than 150,000). So I get to come back on Wednesday morning. Over the course of the next 36 hours, I had significant bone pain and pain behind the eyes. Again, the fatigue, not really having the energy to do anything. Thankfully no uncontrollable bleeding.

Wednesday morning I go back into the clinic and they do another blood test to check on my platelets. Thankfully, they've gone up (171,000), and the doc concludes that on Monday they were under the 150,000 mark, which qualifies me for dengue. That's the part where he said, "You had dengue." At this point, despite all the symptoms lining up, I'm skeptical. I don't like this retroactive diagnosis, but I suppose I don't really know what else it could be.

I'm limited on my dengue knowledge at that point, so I'm a little concerned about the d-word. But the doc is pretty much treating this as a routine thing. He prescribes acetaminophen and vitamin-C, and I'm out the door. There's no vaccine or cure for dengue, so the plan is to stay hydrated and rest. Good luck!

Rest was not a problem. I didn't have the energy to do ANYTHING. This wasn't a big deal on Tuesday, because I was so tired that I slept all day. But by Wednesday, I was all slept out but still had no energy, and if you know me, you know that I keep busy. So I kept trying to get up and do something around the house, only to find that every 15 minutes on my feet required about two hours on my back in order to recharge.

The tylenol helped keep the fever at a reasonable level and slowly but surely I've been recovering. Any skepticism I had about whether or not I had dengue has been eliminated by the latest symptom. The new thing is this incessant itch that keeps me awake at night. Bottom of the feet, side of the leg, stomach, shoulders, feet, shoulders, hands, legs - every ten seconds there's a new itch that I try my damnedest to ignore but can't keep from scratching. It's not as bad during the day, only when I'm trying to get to sleep.

Thankfully I have my energy back for the most part. I was able to get to the gym this morning and do the normal shopping errands without feeling like I needed to flop on my bed when I got back. After a couple more days of itching I'm supposed to get a rash which will turn me a nice tint of red. Theoretically I'll be back to normal after that. They say it takes about 15 days to fully recover from dengue, so hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll be good to go.

Oh, I totally lost my appetite in this whole process, too. From last Monday to this past Monday, I was eating maybe a third of what I would normally take down. Believe me, I tried to get more down, but I couldn't do it. So I'm guesstimating that I lost about 10 pounds, which will probably take me about 30 years to put back on, but, again, at least I'm not bleeding from the face.

One of the teachers at Niño Jesús says she's had dengue four times, which is a little bit encouraging because I can't find anything scientific on the second round of dengue; just people saying that the risk is increased for the more serious hemorrhagic dengue. I certainly don't want to be dealing with that anytime soon. I suppose there's not a whole lot I can do. Just hope I dont get more dengue. I finally gave in and got a mosquito net. We'll see if that helps.