Chikungunya

I know when it happend. Tuesday when I was showering. How do I know? Mosquitoes don't really like me. It is rare for me to get bitten. Even in the mosquito filled summers of Alabama, I never got bit and never used insect repellant there. Here though  I use Avon Skin So Soft Bath oil every time I shower. I use OFF. I don't want to take any chances here. So even though I know I am not their favorite meal I am careful. So yes I knew exactly when I got bit.

Chikungunya , chik V, or as some are callimg it, chikamonga (the chik among us) made its presence known to me on Thursday. First you have to understand i have lived with pain every day since 1997. My brand of pain is degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis and spondylosis. My pain level medically speaking stays within the range of 2-4. I do take medication such as Tramadol and muscle relaxers which I know keeps it at those levels. And distraction helps too. I read or paint or just try to focus on anything else. 

So Thursday, the pain was progressively getting worse. No big deal. Usually that just means it is going to rain. I remember as a child, when I would hear elderly people say it was going to rain because their bones hurt, "yeah, right". I thought they were crazy! Well now I am one of the crazies! 

I iced my back, took an extra Tramadol, took Naprysyn. Still not getting releif. I did not sleep well Thursday night. Then about 3 am Friday morning I realized I had fever and the pain was like something sharp ripping through any joint i moved. I couldn't turn over, move my head or use my hands! 

I slept most of Friday. Tylenol kept the fever between 99.4 to 101F.  I didn't leave the bedoom except to go the bathroom. Trying to stand up was a nightmare! Then the itching started. Random itching, on my head, my arms, back,  legs, ears amd even inside my vagina. When I showered I noticed a diffuse non raised red rash on the trunk of my body. Roger went and got us a hamburger for supper and my jaws hurt trying to eat it.

Did I mention my eyes hurting? I could not even read!  Trying to focus my eyes was like stabbing needles in them! My head hurt so bad! My hands hurt! I could not pick up a glass of water and trying to pick up my IPAD ( which contains my books, my bible studies, my life) my wrists felt as if they were being ripped from my body and the fingers being ripped out one by one! My precious Jesus is this what Your wrists felt like when You hung on the cross?

Then the unthinkable happens. Roger starts having symptoms! Lord no, please no! We can't both be sick at the same time! But yes. It was true. Fever and bone pain had hit him as well.

Today is Saturday. My fever is around 99 right now and my eyes don't hurt and the pain is not as intense. I can stand up although not for long periods of time. Which is why I can write this. Roger is today as I was on Friday. 

 I pray this signals the ending of this monster called Chik. But I think it is just a lull in this journey of pain. My back is already hurting really bad again and my eyes are burning as they do when fever increases. So I will end this chapter on Chikungunya. Don't know when chapter two will come.