Thursday, December 18, 2014

Chicken Pox

This post is a recount of my terrible experience with chicken pox, just last year August.

On a fateful Saturday, I was out with my bf at Tampines Mall. We were having A1 porridge at the food court for dinner. A1 porridge is my favourite but somehow I had no appetite that day. I felt sick for no specific reason, no flu or fever, just felt tired and sick. When I woke up on Sunday, I felt bodily aches but I continued with my schedule to give tuition to my Thai students. On my way up to their unit, I scratched my neck and felt like water came out. I didn't put much thought into it as I thought they were pimples. Afterwhich, I realized that I burst a few of them. They were slightly itchy and seems to keep producing the watery substance.

Everybody thought I shouldn't be having chicken pox because I got it before (or so I thought). Later that day, I started to feel a few bumps on my body which looked like blisters. Because of curiosity and itchy hands, I used a cotton bud to burst one of them lol. On Monday, 2 to 3 red dots started to appear on my face. They looked like pimples so I was still able to face the world. I called to make an appointment in the polyclinic but was told that I could walk in straight because it is a suspected chicken pox case. The staff on the phone told me how she knew because her kids had got it and consoled me T,T. Poor me.

I was told to wait outside when I arrived at the polytechnic.Then I went into this special isolated room and waited for the doctor, who then came, all wrapped up. Thinking that I have had chicken pox before, I told the doctor about it. He looked surprised as I think it is probably very low chance to get chicken pox a second time. He prescribed me some itch medicine, fever medicine and calamine lotion. The medicine was sent to the room for me and I don't even need to pay as the bill will be sent directly to my house. Then, I left from the backdoor lol. So outcasted.

The pox begin to appear more. I asked my mother about my chicken pox incident when I was young. Turned out, there isn't a diagnosis that I had chicken pox because she didn't bring me to the doctor. She assumed I had chicken pox and said that at that era, people don't see the doctor and just let the chicken pox go away by itself. Hence, my conclusion is that it wasn't chicken pox at all the first time. My neck was starting to be infected and itch because of my accidental scratch. I kept applying calamine lotion till my neck turned white but this lotion doesn't work very well in stopping the itch. I resorted to putting prickly heat powder and had to slowly caress my neck to relief the itch haha. The rest of the body seems less itchy, from what I remembered. But there are nights that I can't sleep because everywhere is itchy.

The pox grew all over my body, a few here and there on my legs and arms, and a lot on my face, and also my scalp T.T. I scratched my scalp anyway since even if scars were left, they can't be seen. Washing my hair was so difficult because I cannot wash properly. Feeling an uneven scalp filled with poxes is quite disgusting. I had to wear sports bra instead because they would not press against any pox. My face was horrifying to look at.

Despite my condition, I forced myself to catch up with my readings in school. I cannot go to school for two weeks and had missed the first two lessons of a module I took with my bf, upset much. My mother would prepare a kind of herbal water for me to bathe with everyday [felt so touched]. I couldn't eat any chicken, seafood and so many things that time. I was emo, lethargic and so sad. At the same time, I was quite worried I had spread the virus to people who interacted with me. One of my thai student caught the bug, but her symptoms were so much lesser because she's still a kid.

As the pox started to dry off, I just felt like plucking them out HAHA. Some drop off themselves, and most of them left scars. It has faded a lot since then, except those on my neck, they look so damn obvious white circles kind. And there's like two pox on my face which are bigger than the rest. I had to be so careful when they dry off, in case I accidentally scratched them off. Anyway, the dried skin dropped off by itself but it still left holes -.-. The holes were so obvious at first but has become better now. When I put concealor on the hole last time, the hole become more conspicuous.

Because of this, I researched on chicken pox. I will definitely give my children the chicken pox jab because the chances of getting it is lower. And even if they get it, the symptoms will be very mild. There's also another thing called Shingles which a person can get if he had chicken pox before. The chicken pox virus will remain dormant in the body and strike again when we're older, to become shingles. Factors such as stress may increase the chance of shingles attack. I better be stress freeeee.
 

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