New Mania

Here is the next one, then.....Singapore once more.

I was on my way to meet Raquel (my Pinay Lab Assistant) in the Philippines from London via Singapore. It was in the days when I first accepted the Geneva post, the one I quit a few months after.

I wanted to check out some of my computer friends in Singapore, and back in those days I was just a spotty student.

I took Singapore Airlines, which is the second best airline have flown, after Emirates.

I think I got too near to one of the Stewards.

You have to realise that in a pressurised airplane, not only is everyone's breathed air recycled, but also any infections.

I left the plane in Manila with a slight cough.

I got to Tacloban City, Visayas, where Raquel was to meet me, and by that night in the Manhattan Hotel there, my cough had gotten really rattley. Next day, we took the bus on the 90 minute drive to Hilusig, and my cough got gradually worse.

I was to spend two or three days with her family, but it was just a village, where water was drawn from wells, and the weekly washload done in the river.

By late afternoon that day, I felt quite ill, so I caught the bus back to Tacloban. My body was aching terribly and despite the heat I was shivering incontrollably.

I arrived back at the Manhattan Inn and just slept.

My symptoms were fever, shakes, rattling cough, aches and feeling really yucky.

I stayed in the hotel for a week, as Raquel , and Raquel's Mom and Dad took turns to act nursemaid by buying medication from the Mercury Drustore, 100 yards away, myself being incapable to even walk.

I took Raquel back with me to Korea, still feeling awful, and I went straight to the Korean Doctor there. He took an X-Ray and was amazed as I was to tell me I had had Mycoplasmic Pneumonia for a week without knowing it.

By that time, I was over the crisis, so he gave me the correct medication, and I was more or less normal after a week.

However, I had survived pneumonia with a week with NO MEDICATION or DOCTORS!

It didn't end there. The nature of Mycoplasmic Pneumonia is such that it can reoccur, as it is a microbial infection.

I caught it again before the year was out, but still I did not go to hospital.

It lasted a week this time, not two, because I had the care.

Suffice it to say, not many people can say they have had pneumonia twice. Even less can say they survived it for a week without proper care.

At the time, I was so ill I just had no interest in anything but staying alive.

Now, I look back and realise it takes more than pneumonia to stop me.

I have such a strong will to live and enjoy life, it seems now I just shrugged it off and I can take anything on!

AHSAA!