whee~

Home in Bed
1:18 PM March 06, 2009

Ok. I've contracted Shingles, and I've been at home in quarantine for this entire week. Hopefully I'll be well enough to go to school by next week. -_-

I'm getting as much bed rest as possible and trying to limit my activities to certain areas of the house because this thing is pretty contagious. One of our helpers has been getting on my nerves about it, insisting that it's chicken pox when it isn't and insisting that it isn't contagious, when it is. Grr... Her favorite is 1) my face is destroyed 2) when you're poor, you get chicken pox all over your body, but since you can afford medicines, you only get it on your face 3) it's not contagious. Baaah!!!

I've told her a billion times that it's not chicken pox. My mom has told her, even her companion told her it isn't. She just doesn't get it. T_T And she keeps bringing her kid in the room with her to observe the progress of the infection, can't she understand that it's contagious, ESPECIALLY to little kids? Argh.

I honestly hope her kid doesn't get infected.

And the other day, my dad got mad at me for not going to school. Well, sorrreee... The doctor told me not to go. It's not like I want to miss such crucial accounting days during the last stretch of the semester. Honestly. When you're on questioning the chances of passing a course, you don't willingly miss classes for that same course. It's just suicide. And from what I hear from my classmates, things are getting tougher in class now. Every meeting, everyone has to put their bags in front and answer a bunch of exercises that have to be returned to the professor. No one is allowed to keep copies because it's really comprehensive. Everything we've been doing this while semester is culminating in those exercises, and I can't even see them because I'm sick. Shet, I really want to pass this course and graduate this sem. Talk about awful timing. T__T

On the lighter side of things, my mom bought me two of the books I really wanted, because 1) I offered to pay for one, and 2) they must have pitied my horrible looking face and pathetic circumstance. ^^;

More on the shingles. I actually have it on my face, which makes it 1) a dangerous kind of shingles, 2) give me really really severe headaches and 3) impossible for me to go to school. If I had it anywhere else, I could still go to school, and so can you imagine what kind of luck I have? Not only is shingles already rather unusual, it also just had to happen on my face.

And the headaches are hell. I'm not prone to headaches, but these were so bad, I kept throwing up. Thankfully, I was prescribed some painkillers which I have to take daily.

I mentioned that it was dangerous, and that's because it's also close to my eyes (it spread partly on my right eyelid). If it spread further, it could have gotten into my eyes and scratched it and resulted (worse case scenario) in blurry or lost vision. I was horrified. The dermatologist even made me visit an Ophthalmologist for "eye clearance".

But, I'm optimistic that I'll get well before the week is out. We caught it pretty early (and there is a story there too) so hopefully I'll make it for my Monday exam. :D

Anyway, I noticed that my forehead was itchy last week, friday, but of course, I though nothing of it. By afternoon, I was feeling the symptoms of fever, which had me worried since I had to retake an accounting exam that Saturday. I was feeling better on Saturday morning due to several doses of paracetamol. My friend noticed that the red spots on my forehead seem to have spread, but we all thought nothing of it. By Saturday night the fever returned and again, I felt better the next morning. My forehead, however, was really bothering me. The irritation had spread to my eyelids, and it was itching (and tingling) so much I was getting snappy and cranky. I was so bothered I forced my mom to take to to the doctor or something (not a usual thing for me to do), and my mom took me to DermClinic in SM, since she said the clinics in the hospital would be closed. So we went and they said I had allergies. They prescribed all sorts of medication, about 3 pages worth, including moisturizer. -_- I was a bit suspicious (you would be it you watch House and you see how cool diagnosticians are) but I was also relieved it wasn't anything worse. Like shingles. -_-

But by Monday morning, I had a really really bad headache. As in I'd burst into tears everytime I tried to talk, and I was getting nauseous. It was that bad. T_T I begged my mom to take me to the hospital. And one quick look at me and the doctor was grabbing a mask to cover her face. It was obvious what it was. She even said that the doctors at Dermclinic aren't really doctors, and that's just like getting your maid to diagnose your disease for you. Plus all the meds they prescribed were wrong. Baaah! And the doctor was really nice and she showed me pictures and explained eveything all the symptoms, and even why the rash looks the way it does.

Apparently Shingles is the reactivation of the chicken pox virus (varicella zoster) that lays dormant in your system. When your chicken pox heals, the virus doesn't entirely leave your body but sleeps happily somewhere along your spinal cord. Then several years later (for causes still unknown) they'll happily decide to show up again, and they become shingles, which only infects one part of your body, and obeys an imaginary midline, so if it's on your right side, it'll never crossover to the left.

I did a bit of internet research, like the doctor suggested, and learned that since it's highly contagious, you can easily affect others as well. If you infect a person whose had chicken pox, they'll get shingles, if you affect a person whose never had chicken pox, they get chicken pox. Same virus you see. It perfectly explains all the symptoms, headache, fever, etc., it looks right (like the pictures) and it even obeys a midline (I have it on my forehead, and it's only spreading on the right side). But the thing is, I've NEVER HAD CHICKEN POX. I did, however, get a chicken pox vaccine, and that's the only explanation I can offer to this crucial missing bit of the puzzle.

There's a shingles vaccine, btw, and I wish I'd known about it and had it done before this all happened. What a time to get sick. Just when you think think you're safe. Tsk tsk...

come fly ~ gen