After having a good Valentine’s Day being pampered by flowers, chocolates and warm company from friends, I would have never thought I would be in a completely different mode a few hours after that. For the record, I did not touch a single drop of alcohol the night before (people who are close to me know I’m a teetotaler). Here’s a mini diary of what a public relations person does on a sick day.
4am: I woke up shivering badly. I checked my duvets and saw that I still had two on me. I reached out for my phone to check the current temperature. Maybe the end of the world came earlier than the Mayans expected, I thought. It was 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).
4:30am: I was in such bad shape that I couldn’t even get up, but I struggled and turned on the heater at the end of my bed. It still didn’t help so I forced myself to get up to measure my temperature and make a cup of Ganmao Gegentang Chongji. It was 103 again. This was my second fever in two weeks. My body was shaking so badly that I was spilling that cup of hot liquid in the kitchen everywhere. It’s like I was having some kind of fit or withdrawal from drugs (and no, I don’t do drugs, ever). I went back to sit in front of the heater and gobbled it down knowing at least it would warm me up. It did help and I fell back to sleep.
5:30am: I woke up again. This time I was sweating all over, so the Chinese medicine was working its magic again.
8:00am: Temperature was down to 100.
9:00am: Working from home.
12:30pm: I do not like these little white pills called Paracetamol and Virulex, though I waited for over 2 hours to see a doctor who said it’s a fever induced by virus and he had no way to tell what or why unless I went to a hospital to get a detailed examination. Geez, thanks. I could come up with that diagnosis myself.
2:00pm: My friends said long-term unhappiness and frustration lead to sickness. This is a signal my body is telling me my mind needs some recuperating. One of them shared that she had high fever non-stop for a while. All the doctors said she was fine, except that her immune system collapsed after her marriage was falling apart. It has nothing to do with the body, it’s all about the head and heart. I don’t disagree with them.
2:30pm: I left these little white pills aside and continued taking my Chinese herbal medicine.
4:00pm: Meetings and promotion planning in Lan Kwai Fong
8:00pm: Dinner in Central
9:00pm: TimeOut Magazine event in Central
11:00pm: Home. Temperature was down to 98.3! Hooray! That Chinese medicine is really magical. Works every single time. Going to bed with a smile on my face, ready to conquer the world again tomorrow.
