Joanna's Singapore adventures

After all the hype about swine flu, I was relived not have any flu like symptoms when i was travelling to Singapore. Such things aren’t looked upon kindly in airports. Unfortunately my good health did not last long. Within 5 days of arriving I developed a cough. At first I explained it away as asthma triggered by something in the air. 24 hours later, the other major flu symptoms (fever, sore throat ect) started to make their appearance. Just what I needed having just arrived alone into a new country.

The fever started to get pretty bad so I decided I should get it checked out by a doctor. Only problem with that was the university health centre doesn’t open on weekends. That meant I had to go to the hospital emergency ward. I was seen impressively quickly- I waited only 5-10 minutes. Back home you wouldn’t get seen anywhere near as quickly (probably not even if you were dying). It wasn’t all such smooth sailing. Despite the fact that both myself and the doctors/nurses/admin staff all spoke English, I had a lot of communication difficulties. I had an Australian accent and a sore throat. They had Singaporean accents. Both of us were muffled by surgical masks. I had to repeat myself a lot (as did they). I gave up trying to explain that I was an Australian, not a local so just handed them my passport instead. Eventually we managed to sufficiently communicate and I got sent home with multiple medications.

The medicines were a bit of a problematic experience. I have trouble swallowing tablets and tried various ways to get them down. I ended up grinding up the panadol tablets and mixing them with mashed banana. A lot of effort but at least it meant I got the panadol down. If I didn’t take them the fever would get worse. Fever is bad at the best of times. The heat and humidity of a tropical country made it so much worse. I don’t think I have ever sweated so much. No matter how much water I drank, I would still end up dehydrated. Then there was the cough syrup. They weren’t kidding when they said it may cause drowsiness. Only problem was this was not “send you quickly into a deep, restful sleep” kind of drowsiness, more of a “keep you unable to sleep but way too out of it to complete even basic tasks. I tried to stay in my (often kinda warm) room so that I wouldn’t infect anyone else but sometimes I had no choice than to venture out for food or other necessities. That required a facemask. Those can get rather stuffy in hot & humid weather. They also make eating and drinking in public remarkably difficult. You don’t wanna be seen taking it off public because it then looks like you don’t care about whether others get what you have but you can’t eat or drink easily with it on.

Thankfully I am a lot better now. The fever is totally gone and the cough is nowhere near as bad as it was. Hopefully it isn’t an experience I am gonna have to repeat while I am here.