D'oh! Dengue...

So last Saturday I was out for a run.  It was remarkable for a couple of reasons:

• I was starting to really feel like I was getting my flow on and into the rhythm of regular running. 
• It was freaking hot out (93 or 94 degrees with high humidity).

It's the second bullet which was the killer.  I ran 3 laps of my usual loop, but somewhere in the second half of my second lap I started feeling really iffy - worse than heat and dehydration, but that's what I wrote off my feelings to at the time.  Then toward the end of my 3rd lap, I was blithely reading a sign "Hemos de azúcar" and suddenly I was no longer earthbound.

My typical loop has some "obstacles" in it.  It isn't a full on parkours track, but one must be constantly paying attention.  In this particular portion of my loop the sidewalk is kind of terraced, with regular down steps which must be attended to...Well much to the amusement of the family of 6 who I yard-saled in front of, I was not attending.  Fortunately I wasn't hurt worse than a bit of a scratch on my arm and very dirty back, but this set up a couple of days of misdiagnosis.

Punk A$$ Bitch!

Were it not for the heat during the run, I may not even have gotten sick, but as it was I felt progressively worse throughout the afternoon and into the evening, but both Nataly and I wrote off my feelings as resulting from the trauma of the fall.  Nataly was feeling ill herself - Friday she went to the doctor in, what she termed, the worst pain she'd experienced since having Deneb.  The doctor proscribed some injectable antibiotics based off of some bloodwork and suggested that she hope it's a bacterial infection because the alternatives weren't very pretty.

Saturday evening I started thinking I had a fever.  Nataly didn't think so, and neither did her aunt, but I was pretty convinced.  Saturday was the first day of carnival and were visiting Nataly's aunt and eating some fried chicken, and I found it everything I could do just to keep my head up.  Eventually I went upstairs and lay down with Deneb and tried to watch a movie.

The movie was called "Up!" which I've seen the second half of, but not the first.  The second half features a goofy golden retreiver, lots of dogs and a zany quest but the first part is fantastically sad.  Deneb picked up on the emotion in the first part and we couldn't watch until the movie got funny.  Oh well.

When we got home I took my temperature and sure enough it was over 100.  Not much of a fever, but enough to justify me thinking I had one.  Whatever...  The next morning I woke feeling like I'd been hit by a truck.  We still didn't know what we had, but whatever it was it sucked.  Nataly's fever topped out at 102.7 mine at 102.3.  The symptoms were identical to the "common cold" with the exception that the pain in the joints was truly remarkable.  Without chemical support there was no way for me to find a comfortable position.

Regarding:  chemical support.  It's really a good thing there's Google.  Some time on Tuesday I started suspecting I had dengue.  It started with folks joking about it, but upon googling I realized that they weren't really joking.  I had all of the classic symptoms:  horrible joint pain, headache focused in the eyes, fever and a rash which really popped on Tuesday.  Dengue is known not so much because of what I've experienced, but because in certain circumstances it can get really bad and turn into a hemorrhagic version of the disease.  You know, blood oozing out of your nose and eyes kind of bad.

So far, I haven't gotten to experience that.  In fact, I'm thinking I'm almost out of the woods.  The rash is almost gone and I haven't had a fever in a couple of days.  The rash was pretty special though...

I haven't run since last Saturday, and think I'll hold off until after I have a follow up blood test on Monday, but I'm starting to really jones.  Great news is:  I expect to get my inaugural run in at my new house within a week.  Can't freaking wait.  Who has 3 tangerine trees in their yard?  That's right: ME!

If the trade is Dengue for tangerines, so be it.
thanks for reading
J