Wired868 Wired868 for smart sport news and opinion
Something tells me that I already mentioned that I had dengue four times; once, dengue haemorrhagic fever, another at the same time as chikungunya.
The first time, around the year 2000, was an ordeal itself, worsened by the fact that I had no idea what was happening when the pains hit.
I had been working on a feature on Grande Riviere Estate in the north-eastern part of Trinidad, focusing on the newly-opened Mt Plaisir Hotel and the leatherback turtles nesting right on its doorstep. I’d taken my daughter and we were leaving after a couple days of pure delight and discovery.
As we drove along the bumpy road lined with trees, maybe half an hour away from the hotel, I felt sudden, excruciating pain. I thought my bones were exploding, my head was splitting and my eyes felt like forceps were trying to prise them out of the sockets.
I kept going, not knowing what was happening and hoping it would go away.
My daughter, as was her habit, was stooping on the floor of the back seat, playing with pebbles and shells, oblivious to my agony. I wasn’t about to enlighten her. I decided to keep pushing forward for as long as I could.
I have no clear recollection of the rest of the journey. I made it to Mt Lambert in some kind of grim blur and collapsed as soon as I got into the house. I called my sister, or someone.
The second time I was walking from my bedroom to my kitchen when the pain came. I doubled over and felt like I could not stand up straight again. This time, I knew immediately.
On the third occasion, there had been heavy rains and my nephew’s apartment had been flooded out. My relatives were there to help and I decided to leave my car home as I knew parking might be difficult, and walked over.
As we finished and I was leaving, the pain struck and although I had already started walking, I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the 15-minute journey.
This was the really bad one. My sister took me for a blood test and I practically passed out. The following morning, she and my brother turned up and took me for another one. The people at the lab said I needed to be hospitalised.
That was in 2008 and I think there must have been an outbreak as well, because when they took me to St Augustine Community Hospital they said they were full, and we headed to Medical Associates in St Joseph.
Photo: BBC
I recall that apart from the pain so I could barely move, I felt that my chest was so dry that I found breathing difficult. I knew something was different this time, and having read up on the shock syndrome, I asked my sister if my lips looked blue. She took one look at me and went running.
Within moments, I was being given oxygen and all sorts of mechanical appendages were attached to me.
What transpired over the next week is mostly a hazy memory (I think I’d written about it shortly after), but I recall that I was told my platelet count had dropped to four.
There must have been internal bleeding because I fell asleep with my right hand resting on my left arm, and when I came awake there was a deep purple imprint.
I am trying to describe what I felt on each occasion not to offer medical explanations, because I invoke these memories to try to give a sense of what it feels like to have dengue. In each instance, I felt absolutely fine until the pain came.
When we read accounts of the figures—the statistics that tell us how many cases, how many deaths, where they are most prevalent—it doesn’t quite communicate what having dengue means. It doesn’t convey the long-term effects on your life, even when you have recovered.
It takes about seven days from the onset of symptoms for the virus to pass through the body. I think you develop immunity from each strain once you’ve had it. The thing is that there are mutations, so you’re never really safe.
The World Health Organisation says half of the world’s population is now at risk of dengue, estimating 100-400 million infections annually. It has grown significantly; reported cases going from 505,430 in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019.
“Since the beginning of 2023 ongoing transmission, combined with an unexpected spike in dengue cases, resulted in a historic high of over 6.5 million cases and more than 7,300 dengue-related deaths reported,” says the WHO website.
With the latest local outbreak of dengue, and the swarms of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes making life miserable for citizens up and down the country, it was a bit of a relief when someone from the Insect Vector Control Division turned up to inspect the premises for potential breeding grounds.
It was clear, because I am extremely fastidious about that. But there were several culprits on the street.
It is one thing to beg the Health Ministry to spray infested areas, such as the besieged Woodlands community where the mosquito population has increased dangerously.
But with the rainy season exacerbating things, it requires everyone’s participation. If people can take responsibility for their own premises, it might whittle away at this threat to us all.
Chapter 3: Paid and Paid ... This journey has taught me so many lessons—the importance of savings and insurance being Read more
Little things add up—sometimes, they can sneak up insidiously so that we don’t see them coming until something happens. It’s Read more
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with two truly inspiring members of the Cocoa Research Centre Read more
It’s a little bit uncanny that I had wanted to return to discussing trauma, particularly the impact of bullying, before Read more
Chapter 2 - Lost my Double Ds... Surgery day came faster than I thought it would. Read more
Roughly 16 years ago, I interviewed Dr Dan Ramdath, a professor of Biochemistry at The UWI, about the efficacy of Read more
Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
