Sickly Valentine's Day Eve

Valentine's Day was on Wednesday (14th Feb 07), but this whole episode began on Tuesday. Then again, somehow perhaps it really did begin on Monday night.

On Monday night, I had just finished checking my e-mail, when I decided to click on the 'You Tube' website to check out what's new in there, before going to sleep at about 1am. Yeah, it was quite late... but considering that I usually sleep at about 12am, it wasn't too extreme anyway. Yet, when I logged off the PC and went to sleep, somehow I felt a strange inkling that something would happen tomorrow... but I didn't know what exactly.

I had a relatively good sleep and got up for work the next day (Tuesday). I was feeling fine during the bus journey to the office, except that there was this person who was coughing / sneezing (I can't recall) somewhere in front of me. I didn't know whether this person is the culprit, but then again, this isn't the first time that someone coughed / sneezed near me.

Upon alighting the bus, I started to have a bit of runny nose. But I brushed it off because my nose usually gets sensitive in the morning. No big deal... and I went to buy breakfast from McDonalds after putting down my bag in the office. I felt a bit nauseous while queuing up at McDonlads, but I told myself that its okay... maybe I'll rest early tonight.

After my breakfast (& my usual catching up of the daily news from the Channelnews Asia website), my runny nose started to get worse. By 10am, I had already used up 2 packets of tissue paper. At 10:30am, I went to sit in for a product demonstration by 3M at my office training room. My nose started to 'pour'... no longer runny... but literally flowing... minute by minute... I dunno why... but I felt so embarassed in front of the 3M staff as I had to keep on taking out tissue paper to blow my nose every few minutes! That 3M lady looked at me several times too... by then, I had already used up my entire 4 packets of tissue paper. Thank God that I had put 4 packets of tissue paper in my bag (seldom have that many packets!)

I have never used up 4 packets of tissue paper in just one morning! Its a record! In fact, I had begun using the tissue paper from the tissue box outside the training room, until I decided that I had enough... and decided to leave office to see a doctor. I couldn't take it anymore and I was getting a headache from the continuosly flowing nose! So I sent an e-mail to my dept colleagues, packed up and left the office. My runny nose was so bad that the temp staff had to lend me one packet of tissue paper coz I didn't have any more with me. It was so depressing and embarassing!

I left the office at about 11:30am... and the wait at the bus stop was so uncomfortable that I almost wanted to flag for a taxi to bring me home. Thankfully, just as I had made my decision to board either the bus or taxi, whichever came first, then bus 36 arrived! I boarded the bus and sunk into the seat, trying to rub away the throbbing headache. It didn't work though my fingers tips hurt from the rubbing (apparently its quite a bad headache).

As I alighted from the bus at Marine Parade Road, I trodded along the path till I reached the Siglap clinic at 12:55pm. To my shock, the lady was just about to close the clinic for her lunch break! I asked her if I could leave my name first, but she refused and just told me to come back at 2pm. Fine... I can't possible grab her by the throat and make her write down my name, right?

Survival instinct kicked in. It was a hot and sunny afternoon (its 1pm) so I decided to hide inside the VideoEzy retail shop and browse around to distract myself from the headache and still flowing runny nose. It didn't work and I wasn't in the mood to browse the VCD titles, so I decided to cross the road over to Siglap Centre to get some toilet paper from the toilet. I had run out of tissue paper already... and that last packet was my 6th packet of tissue paper belonging to the temp staff.

I felt so pathetic having to pull and pull toilet paper from that dirty toilet. Eeee... but no choice, coz I didn't want to buy tissue paper as I had just bought 3 packs for my family recently. After blowing my nose, I decided to have lunch at the nearby coffee shop. I ordered $2.50 economical rice and purposely ate slowly becoz I didn't know where else to go. I didn't want to walk back home and walk out again in the hot blazing sun. Not much point in going that distance just to only put down my bag.

After finishing my lunch, I saw that it was only 1:35pm (25 min to go, assuming that lady comes back from lunch on time; seriously I didn't like her attitude). It was also warm in the coffee shop, so I decided to get a drink from Siglap McDonalds and sit inside the air-conditioned place. I ordered an ice-lemon tea which the lady had difficulty trying to make out what I was trying to order because my voice had gotten sore...

So there I waited, drank and tried to distract myself by reading a book that I recently bought from MPH on how to improve my presentation skills. Yeah, it was pure distraction by reading. Finally, I waited till 2:05pm before deciding to walk over to the Siglap clinic. The door was open and I gave the lady my name.

I didn't have to wait long (in fact, it was only about 2 min) before I was called to go into the room to see the doctor. I was surprised to see that it was an elderly female doctor coz normally this clinic only has 2 male doctors! She didn't look very professional... and her eye contact was absolutely terrible! In that short 5 min, she only looked at me like twice and about 1 second duration for each eye contact. This elderly female doctor dismissed my condition as nose allergy which I claim that its not... but she wasn't really listening, so I dropped the subject, took the 2 days MC for Tuesday and Wednesday, and trodded home in the hot afternoon sun.

I almost literally rested for the rest of the afternoon, but I could not sleep because of the blocked nose. That's why I didn't like to take Chlorpheniramine because it stops the runny nose, but it gives me severe blocked nose for the next 1 - 2 days! I tried to take the non-drowsy Xyzal tablet (for daytime medication) but it didn't work well either.

Later that evening, I started to develop a slight fever of about 37.4 deg. I took 2 panadols and tried to sleep again. I was glad that the runny nose had stopped, but the blocked nose persisted through the night and I woke up almost every hour just to urine (I drank quite a bit of water) and try to clear my nose. So that was how that day ended...