Tiring Thursday/Friday

Faiq had been unwell for the past 6 days. When I picked him up from his nursery last Friday, his teacher told me that most of the children were sick and that Faiq vomitted in the afternoon. He vomitted again that night on our way back from Julie's wedding and started coughing and had a fever on Saturday. So we brought him to the clinic.

On Monday, when his fever didn't subside, we brought him to the hospital. The paed said that it was probably a viral infection. He did a blood test on Faiq and alhamdulillah, Faiq was tested negative for dengue. However, the paed did caution us that his platlet count was on the lower side. He would've been admitted if there were beds available. The hospital was full house. He told us to bring Faiq back to the hospital if he remains ill after the antibiotics runs out.

I was on 1/2 day leave on Tuesday. When I came back from the office, he was his active self, albeit less hyper than his usual self. It was really noticeable. He also had diarrhea. I took an emergency leave on Wednesday when his fever returned. Despite going to bed early the night before, he only woke up at 2 p.m. that day. That got me worried even though he was his talkative self when he woke up. It was also worrying when he only had a bite of a Gardenia bun. He refused to drink milk or 100 Plus. The only consolation was that I managed to make him drink 3 oz of Glucose. And that was the day he had his last dose of antibiotics.

He didn't have a temperature when I was getting ready for work on Thursday. But I was informed by my maid that he looked weak and slept a lot. When I arrived home from work, Rafiq told me that he had already gone to sleep. We decided to take him to the hospital. When we arrived, there were loads of patients. All around me people were either coughing or feeling feverish. Most of the children had Kool Fever on their foreheads. The queue number at the time was 1082. When we went to the registration counter, the nurse did warn us that we may have to wait for about 2 1/2 hours because there was only one doctor on duty. We decided to wait anyway. Since our queue number was 3104, we decided to go for dinner.

When we returned to the hospital, the queue number was at 3090. However as it reached 3096, it didn't seem to be moving. I found out that an accident patient was brought in and the doctor was treating him/her. I knew it was going to be a loooooooong night. It also got panicky when Rafiq told me that he overheard that one of the patients was tested positive for AH1N1. He then carried Faiq to the next hall, where both of them could sleep on the sofa. While waiting for our turn, silly thoughts kept running through my mind. The what-ifs. What if all of us got infected because we were at the hospital??! I calmed myself down with zikir and doa.

You know that you've been at the hospital for a long period when you managed to watch two movies back to back on HBO. The crowd became less. I looked at the watch and it was almost 1.00 a.m. No more queue numbers on the screen. Should I keep waiting? I seriously thought of just going back. I know for a fact some just left without consultation. Luckily Faiq's name was called shortly after that. After explaining Faiq's condition to the doctor, he decided to take his blood sample and do a nose swab. Faiq of course cried and put up a fuss throughout the whole procedure. The doctor told us to go home as it will probably take hours to get the test results. The test results will be informed to us via telephone. It was almost 2.30 a.m. when we arrived home.

I went to the office this morning feeling tired and sleepy. Rafiq decided to come in late for work as he preferred to wait for the test results. I was anxiously waiting for the result at work. Whilst in a meeting, I received a text message from Rafiq informing that Faiq was H1N1 negative. Alhamdulillah. However, Faiq still needs to do another blood test tomorrow because his platlet count dropped to 130. The doctor said that Faiq was probably in a recovery state as viral infections may cause a patient to have an on-off fever for a period of 2 weeks. Hopefully, it is just that and not dengue.