Since Friday night when my fever sprung up, I have been feeling very much weakened, lethargic and had to struggle with shortage of breath with the tiniest of exertions. What's really getting at me is the gross untimeliness of this whole thing. I mean, I was all energetic and productive for the entirety from Mon to Fri, and when my well-deserved weekend had arrived, I got to spend it with temperatures in excess of 38 degrees C?! Come on!
Anyways, while I've gotten past the stage where I would be shiverish even wearing two sets of t-shirts and cuddled under a thick blanket (that was Saturday), I took my temp this morning and realised that I was still a little warm at 37.8 degrees. I made up my mind then to 'bring some fairness' to this turn of events - I mean, where would the JUSTICE be if I am to allow this fever that had already deprived me of my precious weekend to hang around while I continue to drag my aching body to work, right? An MC is the least I'd scrape off this whole sh*thole affair. Of course, the 'politically correct' way of putting across such things is that the sick one has be responsible and sensible enough to excuse him/herself from work so as not to spread the contagious disease to other co-workers.
And so I went to HTA, settled some administrative arrangements with my colleagues (I still need to ensure that things run smoothly without hiccups while I was away, mah), and then headed to the nearby medical centre at CDA. Which was when I found out that the medical centre is now no longer at CDA. It was pouring cats and dogs when I asked a Provost Guard (who was falling asleep at his very obscurely located guard post) where the centre has been relocated to. He told me BRTC. Right. Just next door, literally. I hopped back onto my car and only on the second round the compound found the new slip-road that now joined the CDA to the newly opened BRTC.
The sparkling new (and huge, too) medical centre at the BRTC was the first thing that greeted me when I crossed over from CDA to the BRTC. Wow. Very posh and modern looking, it also boasted multiple consultation rooms, a triage room (where patients are pre-screened before they are sent to the Medical Officer) and numbered queuing system with display panels above the doors to each of the consultation rooms, the dispensary and the triage room. There was a large notice posted prominently at the spot where I pressed the queue number dispenser for my queue ticket (#26) that announces that patients would not be seen according to the order of the queue number. I knew that to be good (to me, at least), cos being of senior ranks have got its priviledges in some circumstances (such as this one here).
As expected, I got called into the triage room and then very shortly afterwards, into one of the 2 consultation rooms that were operating this morning. The MO was a young man just past his middle twenties. He asked how he could help me, and I told him. I also informed him that for the past 3 days, I have been popping Paracetamol tablets religiously, but that didn't do much in killing the fever, which he at this stage told me it is very likely to be a viral fever. I added that since this morning, I have developed a little bit of a cough, and with the cough I've noticed some yellowish phlegm as well. He duly noted my ailments, scribbled onto my medical docket (which only today I realised I have got two - one at HQ and my original 11-year-old one right here with the new BRTC Med Ctr!), and proceeded to inform me that he'd give me a day of MC, a cough mixture and something for the fever ("Stop eating your Panadols. Eat mine. It contains Panadol, plus something else").
Anyways, while I've gotten past the stage where I would be shiverish even wearing two sets of t-shirts and cuddled under a thick blanket (that was Saturday), I took my temp this morning and realised that I was still a little warm at 37.8 degrees. I made up my mind then to 'bring some fairness' to this turn of events - I mean, where would the JUSTICE be if I am to allow this fever that had already deprived me of my precious weekend to hang around while I continue to drag my aching body to work, right? An MC is the least I'd scrape off this whole sh*thole affair. Of course, the 'politically correct' way of putting across such things is that the sick one has be responsible and sensible enough to excuse him/herself from work so as not to spread the contagious disease to other co-workers.
And so I went to HTA, settled some administrative arrangements with my colleagues (I still need to ensure that things run smoothly without hiccups while I was away, mah), and then headed to the nearby medical centre at CDA. Which was when I found out that the medical centre is now no longer at CDA. It was pouring cats and dogs when I asked a Provost Guard (who was falling asleep at his very obscurely located guard post) where the centre has been relocated to. He told me BRTC. Right. Just next door, literally. I hopped back onto my car and only on the second round the compound found the new slip-road that now joined the CDA to the newly opened BRTC.
The sparkling new (and huge, too) medical centre at the BRTC was the first thing that greeted me when I crossed over from CDA to the BRTC. Wow. Very posh and modern looking, it also boasted multiple consultation rooms, a triage room (where patients are pre-screened before they are sent to the Medical Officer) and numbered queuing system with display panels above the doors to each of the consultation rooms, the dispensary and the triage room. There was a large notice posted prominently at the spot where I pressed the queue number dispenser for my queue ticket (#26) that announces that patients would not be seen according to the order of the queue number. I knew that to be good (to me, at least), cos being of senior ranks have got its priviledges in some circumstances (such as this one here).
As expected, I got called into the triage room and then very shortly afterwards, into one of the 2 consultation rooms that were operating this morning. The MO was a young man just past his middle twenties. He asked how he could help me, and I told him. I also informed him that for the past 3 days, I have been popping Paracetamol tablets religiously, but that didn't do much in killing the fever, which he at this stage told me it is very likely to be a viral fever. I added that since this morning, I have developed a little bit of a cough, and with the cough I've noticed some yellowish phlegm as well. He duly noted my ailments, scribbled onto my medical docket (which only today I realised I have got two - one at HQ and my original 11-year-old one right here with the new BRTC Med Ctr!), and proceeded to inform me that he'd give me a day of MC, a cough mixture and something for the fever ("Stop eating your Panadols. Eat mine. It contains Panadol, plus something else").
Well, that's that. I'm now home resting, having taken the first dosage of my prescriptions for the day. I now wait for the effects of the medicine to set in before I hit the decks (I was informed that both the prescribed meds would cause drowsiness).
Sick Man Of The East, signing off...
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