Chicken Pox - Day 6

Alhamdullilah.. When Naufal woke up this morning, he is looking so much more relaxed. As the day goes on, he shows signs that he is definitely back to his old self again. The temperature is gone and he is no longer itching. However, it is still only the 6th day. Hence, there's no way he is ready to mingle just yet. So that also means that mummy is stuck indoor for another day. Infact, I think the whole weekend!!

So how are we keeping ourselves occupied? Again, the coloring books and endless Thomas the tank engine DVDs..
Naufal is really enjoying drawing and coloring. I'm quite impressed that he can color within the lines, will have to buy more coloring books soon. He seems quite content with his drawing pad and some felt tip pens..

Though I really have to keep an eye on him for fear that he would start drawing on our cream-colored leather couch!!

Will need to start applying Vitamin E gel/creams to his skin so that he doesn't have any scars from this chicken pox.

Get well soon Naufal..

Woke up this morning and immediately checked on Naufal.. Alhamdullilah, his rashes have gone down.. I hope this means that he is gradually getting better.. Last night his Aunty Fatin came for a visit, today his grandma and Aunty Nora is coming over to cheer him up.. they've both had chicken pox so I hope they are immune to the bug..

The redness have toned down, and he seems less itchy.

His face doesn't look so bad.. I just have to make sure that he doesn't start scratching. Good thing his nails are still short.

I noticed that the red spots also appears on his lips and inside his mouth like an ulcer. Fortunately he's not complaining of the pain, and I keep on lathering on the lotion from the clinic to stop him from feeling the itch.

It must be the chicken pox season, even people from different districts are getting it too. The doctor told us that sometimes even people who have had it could still catch the virus again if their immune system is not strong.. Chicken pox could last as long as two weeks in some cases.

We were adviced to get the anti-viral vaccination, the clinic we went didn't have any stock of the vaccine. I thought of going to the peaditrician but I didn't want to expose other kids to the virus.. so I haven't taken Naufal to get it.

When did you have your chicken pox?

My husband haven't had it yet.. which is why he is being extra careful. He's sleeping in a separate bedroom from me and Naufal for the time being. I don't want him to take the risk. Adult chicken pox could be quite bad..

I had my chicken pox when I was 8.. It was quite memorable cause my brother and younger sister also had it simultaneously, while our parents were both out in their pilgrimage!! So say it was "demam rindu".. maybe it is true, we have never been segregated for so long before that..

But it wasn't just that for me.. while my parents were away, my grandma and my dad's relatives came over to take care of us.. and instead of taking us to the clinic they gave us traditional medicine.. one of the cures for itchiness was to put mashed up leaves which was made into a paste with mixtures of some cold powder (bedak sejuk)... Unfortunately, I must've scratched one of the red spots, and it was bleeding. Somehow, it got infected and turned bigger and bigger..

It was so painful as it turned into a painful wound.. It was on my knee and it was so bad that I couldn't walk. My uncle took me to the clinic and the doctor cleaned my wounds.. soon I was ok.. or so we thought...

Weeks later my parents returned, and I guess I felt alright. But not long later, my parents realised that something was not right. I'm not exactly sure what it was, as I didn't realise that anything was or felt wrong. One day, after my father returned from the mosque he brought along one of his friends.. who happens to be our neighbour, and a doctor. He examined me there in the living room... and told dad to bring me to the clinic for a check-up..

The doctor referred me to the hospital, I remember thinking I was going to die.. I'm not sure if I was in pain, but I was just so scared. My urine is as black as coffee, it's contaminated with blood. My kidneys are not functioning, it is infected...

When we arrived in the hospital the next day, there were so many needles stuck in my arms. They took so many blood samples. During lunch my mum told me to eat green vegetables, and other things that could generate blood. I never liked greenies, but I remember eating them that day. So much as if my life depended on it.. Nonetheless, it was not enough.. At the end of the day I was still admitted.

I stayed in the children's ward for almost a month, a bed by the window overlooking the city. It was so strange, I felt so lonely... especially at night. My siblings were not allowed to visit me and I missed them terribly.

Even when I was discharged, I had to bring back my urine sample. We had frequent visits to the hospital to follow-up on my recovery. My veins on my arms and back hand looked like a drug addicts'.. there were marks from the needles where the nurses took my blood samples, not to mention the bruises.

Thankfully, it's all history now. It's over 20 years ago, I'm fortunate that my kidneys have recovered. I'm grateful for modern medicine, grateful for my parents' love and care. Alhamdullilah.. I'm grateful for every day that I am still alive.. Allah is all mighty..

Life is full of surprises…

Naufal is sleeping on the living room carpet and Grey's Anatomy is playing on the TV. It's the episode where Meredith dies, reruns from the season before the one where Lizzie had cancer, and Danny is already dead. Funny thing about TV series is the main character's is never really dead. The show is, after all, about Grey's anatomy.. So if Meredith Grey is dead then that would mean the rest of the show is out the window.. So despite what we would think the ending is, the show pulls a "one-eighty" and Meredith lives another day. And that's what keeps us glued to the screens, these unlikely twists of the plot.. but how are we suppose to know, when things suddenly turns to it's lows, that life (as we know it) would always turn out alright at the end?

The answer is you don't. Nobody gets to read the plots and scripts of their lives before they start the act. You only get to know about it after it is done, after a chapter is lived…

And before that, all we have is hope.. the wishes and prayers. All we can do is plan.

Like how every weekend I plan to fix the curtain that is 3" too long. It is sitting on the red love-seat on the upstairs living room for the past month.. Every weekend I am always too occupied with other plans that I never really got to it. Never would I have imagined that today, on a week day, would I actually finish the sewing that I started a while ago.

There were so many things planned this week.. all the documents to review, the pre-production meeting, the site visits and the pre-commissioning audits.. and I am the lead for this package, my next big "baby" and I have made so many plans of things to do for this week. The site team is being created, CV's flying about, people to interview, and the offshore crew from the last campaign is gearing up to start on this onshore fabrication scope..

On the other hand, Naufal's first sports day will be this Sunday. We just received his sport's day outfit on Monday. Yellow always looks good on him…

Monday was also his last day in school, atleast for this week..

When I got home on Monday night, Naufal was already at my mum's place. His body was warm as he greeted me. As if he is starting to get down with a fever.. he was already coughing that morning, but that's normal when he wakes up. His throat is always a little dried. He had his dinner earlier than us, mum always feeds him while she waits for the rest of us to return from work. This is cause he is always so hungry after playschool, despite the 4 o'clock tea time snacks that the teachers gave him.. Nora was complaining about how he has so many mosquito bites on his arms, and I looked while Naufal starts scratching away. Again, I start talking about how we should put insect repellent in his school bag to give a hint to the teachers that there's mosquitos in the bungalow. It is worrying, especially at this time of the year when it rains in the evenings… but it hasn't been raining in Kelana Jaya, right?

So I had dinner with the others, Naufal was occupied with his toys and the Thomas cartoons that's being played on the TV. It seems just like any other night, until I took him in the bedroom to change his nappy. I wanted to change him into his pajamas, and so I took his shirt off and there it was.. his whole body is filled with spots, the same mosquito-like bites that were on his arms.. then I searched his body for more, his back, his face, his neck, and his upper legs… it's not rashes, it's CHICKEN POX!!

I just can't believe it, just last week our department's secretary's daughter had chicken pox, our prime minister just had chicken pox and now my son has chicken pox!!! I'm positive that the three of them have not been in close contact in the last 7 days, so how…??? I rushed him to our regular clinic to see the GP.. he took one look and confirmed my suspicions.. As I drove home, I realize… I'm gonna have to be home for the next couple of days. Naufal was already scratching in the car, I had to apply chamomile lotion at once.

He just couldn't stop scratching... even his palm was itchy, so we put a plaster on it to stop him from scratching it.

We called his school the next day, and indeed there was another child who just had chicken pox the week earlier. I'm guessing this kid is not completely done with the virus when he/she returned back to the playschool and now my son is the next victim. Honestly, some parents are so inconsiderate!!

So as it turns out, we will be missing out some of the events that are planned this week. It just shows, we can only plan and pray and hope for the best. But life has its own plot in store. Secret twists that we couldn't have predicted. Just have to adjust and move on..

I hope Naufal will get back to his old self again soon. InsyaAllah no complications... Amin.