Chikungunya

Last night I got a phone call from my high school best-friend. She asking about her leg being ached since last two weeks. She also feels pain in the neck. She can hardly moved and change her t-shirt. She asking, is this what I feel when I got chinkungnya last year. This is the second phone call after on the day before my other friend calling me asking about Chikungunya too.

Last year, around March 2007, I felt pain in my left upper arm. I couldn’t realize the cause. It was hard to change the gear when driving the car. In the night I got a fever. Not really high fever (around 38 - 38.5 degree C) but can made you stay in the bed. Unfortunately, the next morning, I had to go to Batam to attend a congress. So, I took Panadol 500 mg to ease the fever.

In the morning, all my body was aching. But it’s to late to had another people to go to congress. So with all Panadol & Imboost I got in my bag and a piece of jacket, I went to RSCM, place where we gonna met before go to the airport. I took all Panadol I need to keep the fever away in this day and also the next day.

I was stay in Batam until Monday morning (around 4 days). On Sunday and Monday, I felt much better. I hadn’t get the fever. But all my body still ached.

On Tuesday, I went to RSCM, because today was my time to became “Chief of chief” anesthesiology. I already felt something wrong with me, my face felt flushing and my hand also. After we finished our morning report, we went to OR to do our duty. After I changed my cloths with a scrub, I look in the mirror and realize why I felt my face flushing. Because all my face and hand got rash. It looks like a measles but it only in my face and hands. So after I consult to my consultants, they decided to send me home, so I can get enough rest. Another thing that I felt was I could barely bent my fingers, aching all over the body. Can barely move. So, I just stay in bed.

Other thing that happened is my husband also sent home because he got the same kind rash with me.

I had almost a week off from school. The rash stay for 3 days, but I couldn’t move to far because all the pain. It felt killing me when I went down stairs but no to much pain when going up. Other thing I do hardly was praying, because I couldn’t bent my hands and feet. Can you imagine, how hard was praying when you can’t bend your feet and hands.

First time we thought this is Hemorrhagic Dengue Fever, so we do the blood test. But the blood test result didn’t matched with Hemorrhagic Dengue Fever. Because my husband and I were wonder what happened to all of us, we do the searching on internet and found out all the symptoms direct us to CHIKUNGUNYA. Unfortunately Chikunguya can only be tested in NAVY lab with all the procedure. My husband, who at that time working at WHO-UN consult to his boss, but his boss said the procedure was to complicated. So I believe, at that time I got CHIKUNGUNYA FEVER.

By the way, there were 8 people at my home having this disease. First, Kaysan (my nephew) and my mom. Kaysan couldn’t even move his body, so we have to picked him up and put him on other positions. After that my big sister got this disease. And then Adi (my brother in law), my husband and me. The last one were my housemaid (man and wife and their baby). Other than that, one of my colleague got this disease too.

The pain is so bad and feels like killing me. I haven’t fully recover by now. At this time, my feet still in mild-moderate pain. I start to felt all the symptoms gone after 3 months, except for my feet. I even took Panadol 1000 mg and codein 20 mg to ease my pain at that time. Specially on my night shift in the hospital.

The good news from all the pain is chinkungunya can only happened once in a life time. But the pain can stay until years.