Hypotension blues

(harmonica plays in the background)

I've had fever and headaches for about 3 weeks now. I thought it was a normal turn-of-the-season event. It's getting cold, so i thought my body was reacting to the weather.

So, i went to class as usual, dismissing those symptoms as mere nonsense up until yesterday, when both became unbearable, the fever and the headache. So i checked my blood pressure and it was lower than my normal self, 105/70. Mine is at 120/80, which is the average normal blood pressure.

And yesterday, the diarrhea started. I thought it was going to be a diarrhea-free year for me, but i was wrong. Now, it has become the eagerly and annually anticipated event.

For these past 2 weeks i am easily fatigued, i could barely concentrate studying. But i could handle reading all those football news. And the Dr. M vs Mr. Nazri verbal wrestling. Above all else, i still managed to force myself to write something on this blog.

But i do wonder which intestinal bug is hitting me. Whatever it is, it is affecting my whole body and not only my stomach.

Funny thing is, i've never lost my appetite. Few years back, when the whole cooking collective of ours, 5 of us, were hit simultaneously with food poisoning, with diarrhea and fever, i was the one left intact with a full scale appetite. Fairuz, my roommate even got admitted that time around.

"What are we going to eat now? Curry? Coorma? Red hot chicken? Kentucky Friend Chicken?"

"After like 93 trips to the toilet you still have the nerves to eat?"

"My God given appetite is a gift i won't dare to deny."

Oh well, i think i need to be more cautious in terms of eating. More fruits, i guess. I ate an orange today for breakfast, which is like the 34th wonder of the world. I rarely eat fruits, unless they are peeled and presented right in front of my eyes on a plate with 2 scoops of ice cream. Manja nak mampos! But i do like bananas, and dislike the durian in whatever form it is (tempoyak, ice cream, pulut durian).

Now, i am gulping litres of water to replace loss fluids. I wanted to pay a visit at the polyclinic, but i am just too lazy with all the bureaucracy there. We are only allowed to go to one clinic here, and worst of all, you could only go there at 3 in the afternoon. If you have diarrhea overnight, and go to the clinic in the morning, they will tell you to come back at 3.

It was not like this a few years back, when we were allowed to go to several clinics in the city. When the university discovered a long lost treasure; the foreign students, they opened a clinic of their own, something like a semi private clinic so that all the students could only get treatment there and they would make millions out of us. . It's crap, but it's Russia.

But i tend to get treatment when it becomes worse. So don't follow my footsteps. If you have any complaints, just pay a visit to the neighbourhood doctor.

Something tells me i may become a stubborn patient myself in the future.