Before It All Happened

On a random Saturday in May, I went to McDonald's with my friends at late night. The air conditioner there was super cold and I was really shivering. That night, we had McNuggets and that was my last meal with fried food and chicken until today.

The next morning, I woke up with high fever. Took a few Panadol tablets, rested at home, and for the first time, I took medical leave from work. The fever lasted until Monday, so I went to a clinic to take another MC again. The high fever was so persistent that it lasted for one whole week, as a result I was off from work for a week too.

Since Thursday, I felt a mild ache in my chest whenever I had big movement, but I thought it was some kind of muscle pain, so I didn't pay too much attention on it. It became more and more severe as time passed by, to the extend that I could only sleep on my side to reduce the pain.

At Friday midnight, I jerked awake from a huge ache at the side of my chest. It was so painfully severe that I couldn't even get up from bed. Fortunately, I left my phone beside me when I slept because I had foreseen such situation to happen. Lol I'm a psychic! I called Mom immediately asking for her help. She then woke everyone else up and my family came to the decision to send me to the hospital.

The Emergency

It was 3am when we arrived at the hospital's emergency department. I was frightened to the core as this was my very first time coming to hospital for treatment. After registration, they performed heartbeat test and chest X-ray on me. On the black-and-white image from the X-ray results, there's a white shadow on my left lung, which could be caused by bacteria infection. The doctor said that as long as it can be seen from X-ray, it is considered serious and needs to admit to hospital. She assigned a respiratory doctor to me who would take a better look on me later. After the agreement, they took my blood for blood test, injected antibiotics, and put on a drip while I waited in the observation area.


It was a looong wait and by the time all processes were finally done, it was already 6.30am in the morning. I was transferred to the General Ward and finally I got to properly lie down on the bed. Dad and Brother returned home while Mom stayed with me. Everything settled down but I couldn't even fall asleep. The doctor came in at about 8.30am and explained his suspicion that I might have caught a type of lung infection, but he wasn't sure whether it's tuberculosis or pneumonia. He also explained the treatment and medication that I would receive. I was given Panadol tablets, cough syrup and two types of antibiotics, tablets and injections.

In the Hospital

Texted some close friends earlier and they visited me in the morning, taking care of me and giving me support. They took turn with Mom to take care of me during the weekends, so that Mom could get proper rest at home.



I really couldn't get used to staying in a hospital ward at all, and one of the most troublesome issues was when I needed to go toilet. I was put on a drip, and it shouldn't simply be removed as the nurse said there is a possibility that the end of the tube will be infected by bacteria. Thus, I had no choice but to bring along the drip stand to the toilet. Mom and my friends helped me with this most of the time.
  
As the news of my hospital admission spread among my relatives, my parents received many calls from them everyday to voice their concerns about me. My generous aunt even came to visit me everyday while bringing lots of nice food, including breads, doughnuts, and cakes, as she was worried that the food provided by the hospital was not to my liking. She also cooked home remedies such as herbal tea and soup which could help improve my lung condition and reduce cough and sputum. I couldn't even finish them all, so I shared the food with my friends and visitors. I was so grateful as my aunt was a busy woman, and yet she forsook her sleeping time to buy and cook all these food, and bring them to the hospital for me. At times like these, support and care from family and friends were very essential to me, like seriously.

On the Road to Recovery

Nurses would take my blood pressure, oxygen level and body temperature from time to time and the doctor would come in twice a day; in the morning and in the afternoon respectively. A nurse said that doctors usually come in once during the weekends, but I was lucky to have this doctor assigned to me who would come twice even during the weekends to check on my health situation.

I was given Panadol tablets to reduce my high fever, but my body temperature would always skyrocket to 39°C+ four hours after consuming Panadol tablets and I would start to chill and feel cold by then. But they only provide Panadol tablets once every six hours. I couldn't stand it; I was freezing and shivering. The first thing that came to my mind was Panadol please! I pressed the call bell, and I was relieved that the nurse said they are allowed to give me Panadol tablets as long as my body temperature was still high after four hours. And so, I consumed the tablets and the temperature maintained at around 37.8 - 38.5°C.

Call Bell

I urged the nurse to provide Panadol tablets every four hours until the fourth time which was the final medication for the day, as the nurse warned that I couldn't consume any more Panadol tablets on the same day or else it would be overdose of paracetamol. But I was very sure that my fever was still severely high! :'( The nurse came back with a few ice packs to help cool down my head and neck. Those packs were super cold, freezing ._. But I needed to endure it to prevent my body temperature from going over 40°C or else I would become 'Ah Wong' later.

The same procedures repeated for the next day. I drank plenty of water, ate medicines on time, and took less heaty meals, but there weren't any signs of recovery. I was starting to get depressed and have many negative thoughts. Why won't I get better? Why doesn't the fever ever recover? Why??? My family and friends tried to console me, seeing me upset and they couldn't do anything... Sigh.

On the third day of admission, I went for an X-ray again, but the white shadow remained almost the same size which made me felt so helpless. I didn't have that much of patience to wait for it to recover. The doctor then suggested me to do computerized tomography (CT) scan to have a clearer look at my lungs. I was told that I shouldn't eat and drink for a minimum 4-8 hours before the scan. Since it was arranged at 9am on the next morning, I started to 'puasa' at 12am.

During the preparation for the CT scan, I was given one injection to prevent allergy. However, the nurse in-charge injected too fast and it hurt my vein. It got bruised! So painful -.- Moreover, the scan was delayed and there was no specific time given. WTH?! I was already very thirsty, HOW LONG DO I STILL NEED TO WAIT?! Things dragged until 2pm in the afternoon, which meant I fasted for 14 hours! Walau, I couldn't rate even 1 star for this kind of service. How thirsty was I?! I could only cough to make my throat less dry. Zzzz...

Since my vein was hurt, the liquid injected through the CT scan machine will be really painful, so the radiologist helped me to poke in my arm and put another tube so that the liquid could go in intravenously. That huge machine really made my blood run cold, I was extremely afraid :X  I know it was just a scan, but I was just scared, I don't care. I WAS JUST SCAREDDDDDDDDDD.

The first thing after the scan was, of course, to drink water. I was really, really thirsty after 14 hours of fasting. The delay of the CT scan already caused me to have a bad impression on this hospital. -.- Once the CT scan results were out, the doctor confirmed my illness as pneumonia and not tuberculosis.