devotions and reflections

It was Friday night. I was waiting nervously for my blood test result. Dr. Nick couldn’t diagnose the cause of my four-day on-and-off fever. He was suspecting dengue but I was denying it by myself. He couldn’t be so sure until he sees the result in my platelet count. Meanwhile, I was walking pacing back and forth in the corridor at the lobby of Bangkok Adventist Hospital to ease the tension that was building up inside me.

Finally, after what seemed like an ages, Dr. Nick called me back in his office. What he said next was like a bomb explosion. “You have a dengue. Your platelet count has gone down to 60.” For those who do not know, the normal platelet count should be 300-400. I tried to be calm but at the same time I asked, “Why me?” Dengue is a dreaded disease and I heard people have died of it. What Dr. Nick said next made me trembled in fear even more. “You might have a transfusion.” Silently I was shouting in denial. “NOOO!!! It can’t be happening! In my confusion, I said I would go home and go back if it gets serious. I have always thought I was careful with my lifestyle so I couldn’t believe I would be getting so seriously sick. My physician even said that I had had a pre-serious dengue before but my immunity was strong enough to fight it. Then a series of recollection came flashing before me.

The next thing I knew I was already in my hospital gown. Strange feeling. I had never been hospitalized before. This was the first time and it’s very serious, I even had to have an IV because I had not been eating for a couple of days.

My next days in the hospital were going to be an ordeal. Morning and evening they had to take blood samples to monitor my platelet. By the second day the sight of a syringe inserted in my vein had become normal thing. Oh, how I used to dread it before this time. Taking oral medicine also got difficult as I couldn’t swallow anything except water. My glottis kept on refusing to let the paracetamol go in though the oesophagus. I was getting so full of water. Finally, after so much persistence I was able to successfully swallow the two tables.  However, I had taken so much water that I threw up and yes, with the tablets because they have just entered the trachea.

As the days progressed my platelet continued to drop to 25. By Sunday I had had transfusions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. When they finally finished I felt unbelievably weak and exhausted like I had been working for days without rest. I couldn’t raise my arm and not pant. Monday morning the platelet went up to 40 but in the afternoon it plunged to 15. Even lower than before I had transfusion. By this time, my glimmering hope flickered. I couldn’t help but sob when I told my friend, Eunice, when she called to check on me that night. Earlier I was hopeful that I would go out of the hospital alive and kicking. But this time I felt death was approaching the door.

The next day my fever hasn’t left and after vomiting the tablets I refused to take them anymore. I was apprehensive I would just spit them out again. I wanted a liquid medicine instead to be infused in the IV. Later in the afternoon I had another transfusion. I noticed that the drops were too rapid and the blood was too cold causing me so much pain as they enter my vein. The pain was unbearable I was screaming and crying like a baby. The nurse had to call the head nurse who scolded me and told me to stop crying or they would send me to the ICU. I thought she was just scaring me and treating me like a little girl who didn’t want to take her medicine to get better.

Unknown to me, Dr. Nick had told my friends to inform my family of what might possibly happen. With dengue haemorrhagic fever grade 3, I’m closed to having coma if it got to grade 4. But I didn’t know that. I only learned about it later. Aside from the platelet going down I was feeling ok. I just felt that I had to stay in the hospital for five to seven days to get medical attention and it can’t be shorter. My mother was calling all the time and I would always say I was OK. Actually, I was feeling strained. My lungs have got fluid. I had difficulty rising up and lying down. When I try to sleep lie on my side I felt like drowning. I could only lie on my back and when I got tired I would raise the lower part of the bed so I would be in a sitting position. But the bottom of my spine was getting sore. A couple of times I had to ask for sleeping pill to help me drowse.

Every morning when Dr. Nick came to visit me he would tell me his family has been praying for me and it would give me a renewed hope. Dr. Nick’s countenance was always cheerful and whenever I see him I see hope. Even if he had told my friends to inform my family of the real situation, somehow, I felt that I was going to get well.

My boyfriend, Francesco, (now my husband), would always call me at night to check on me. On one occasion he said he wanted to book a flight to come and see me. But I didn’t want him to see me in such a pitiful condition. I told him I was fine and that he didn’t have to come. He had just visited me a couple of months ago.

Tuesday afternoon, I started to feel miraculously better. I took a shower and I felt so fresh. I had forgotten how water felt on my skin that I had to gasp, “Is this how it feels?! It’s so damn good and the shampoo was the most fragrant thing I’ve ever smelled. I also started to eat again.

When they removed the IV on Wednesday, rashes appeared all over my body. My lower leg and hands were swollen my shoes wouldn‘t fit my feet. By Thursday morning I was discharged.

A couple of days after I got home I still couldn’t believe why it happened to me. I felt I had always been sheltered by God’s loving hands and I this time I felt His hand got shorter. But the miraculous healing is so overwhelming that I still can’t thank Him enough. As I was mulling over what I had been through I felt embarrassed at myself for asking, “Why me?”

I had been through so much tragedies and each time I felt God’s hand snatching me from the claws of death. Isn’t that good enough? When God carried me to a safe ground during the tsunami did I also ask, “Why me?” Why did God choose me? What did he want from me?

One of my favorite verses in the Bible says, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there, Psalm 139:7, 8 (KJV).

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[d] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Romans 8: 38-39 (NIV).

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