A Tryst With Dengue

Last week will go down as one of the worst in my life. I was down with Dengue fever and spent 1 night in ICU and 4 days in hospital. I was supposed to travel to Delhi and Chandigarh for the new web business I am setting up, and had meetings on Monday and Tuesday (21 – 22 September). However I had started feeling uneasy on Sunday 20^th itself, but thought it was because of the routine exertion and will go off with a crocin and a night’s sleep, and hence I continued with travel plans although I was feeling feverish at Nagpur airport itself. Monday and Tuesday at Delhi were horrible, with me throwing up everything I was eating, and running temperature. Somehow I finished my Tuesday meeting, cancelled my evening train ticket and returned back to Nagpur by Wednesday morning flight. That was one wisest decision that I must have taken in recent past of not traveling by train on Tuesday night. I landed in Nagpur with 104 temperature and straightway slept off after taking a crocin. Thanks to my doctor brother-in-law (jijaji) who immediately realized the gravity of situation (which I couldn’t understand) and put me on IV fluids (commonly known as saline) and gave all the anti-biotics and other medicines through it as I was vomiting everything I was eating. Although my temperature was back to normal on Thursday, blood test report showed that I am running an infection which is fast depleting my immune system. Biology students will remember the role of White-Blood-Corpuscles and platlets (which are responsible for stopping bleeding). Normal range of platlets count in blood is 1.5 to 4 lakhs, and it had dropped down to 30,000 in my case, liver had gotten an inflammation and there were all chances of complications, internal bleeding and liver, kidney and more organs failing. There was a patient with these complications in the same hospital being treated for dengue. Thankfully Jijaji understood the seriousness and I was admitted into ICU at 1am on Thursday night and treatment was started. I responded well, and by Friday evening, I was showing all signs of recovery.

But the night I spent in ICU, though I didn’t realize it then, was quite critical. For the first time I had hallucinations. I saw strange faces staring at me, and then these faces turning into monsters. I was just waiting for whole of my life to flash in front of me, but by God’s grace things didn’t turn that bad. I didn’t have a proper meal for whole 8 days and was relying only on apples and fruits and IV fluids. I came back home on Dussherra and have been recuperating since then. Thanks to my friends there in Delhi and Jijaji and my family that I managed to avoid complications of Dengue and am back in business in a span of 10 days.