Dengue Incident

Last week was stressful for me. My sister had dengue. She started having high fever and was vomiting on 30Nov. The following day, my mom brought her to MMC's ER. She was already dehydrated. First diagnosis was UTI but it seems she wasn't responding to the antibiotics. She started having diarrhea too and it seems she was having symptoms for dengue or typhoid according to the doctors. They couldn't test her for dengue yet since they said that it was too early. On Monday, they confirmed that it was dengue. On Tuesday morning, the side of her mouth bled and her platelet count dropped to 60,000 (normal is 150,000). The doctors said that if her platelet count drops to a certain number then blood transfusion would be required. They continously monitored her platelet count. The result on Tuesday night was that it dropped to 23,000. She had to undergo blood transfusion. She needed 5 bags of blood but there were only 3 bags available. They had a hard time looking for 2 more from the Red Cross and other hospitals. She underwent the blood transfusion but on the 3rd bag they had to stop since she developed red spots on her face.

My sister and I have the same blood type, B+. Since she might need another blood transfusion, I had to go home on the first flight that I could get. I tried to take a chance on the last flight out of Singapore on Tuesday night but flights are all fully booked. Went back to the airport at 4am on Wednesday to take a chance again but still no luck. Was able to book a flight for Thursday morning. Kept on calling my mom to check on my sister's progress.

On Wednesday, her platelet count went up to 27,000. We hoped that it would continue its climb. However, when my plane landed on Thursday, it went down to 21,000. The doctors did not want to transfuse at once. Another blood test and if the result showed a lower count then another transfusion was definitely needed. Good thing it went up and the following morning it was at 40,000.

When I arrived, my sister's extremities were so red. They said it was the dengue rash. It's normal but for her case it was severe. She said it was super itchy and painful even when it came in contact with a pillow or a blanket, she would complain. The rashes were very red and those on her arms and hands even became swollen.

She was finally discharged from the hospital on Sunday when her platelet count became 105,000. She's at home now. Her rashes are not totally gone, still red but better. She's eating more and feeling a lot better.

After this incident, I have gone more OC especially on how to prevent dengue. I think it's better to overreact and be "praning" when it comes to dengue.

Printing and ink

Was supposed to scrap last night. I already chose 2 pictures that I wanted to scrap. Started to print the photos but midway, the photo paper was ejected by the printer and a warning popped on the screen that the ink is low and needs to be replaced. Now I need to buy ink before I could scrap recent pictures. Maybe for the mean time, I'll just scrap the photos that I had developed in Manila before. Photos that I should have scrapped probably last year. This would certainly reduce my backlog!

Start of something new...

Took long enough to create this blog. Oh well, it's been taking me too long to scrap too. Attended my first scrap eb last February 2006 but was only able to create a few los from time to time. The last Scrapfest I was able to attend was last September 2006. Since then, schedule has been hectic until recently. Hopefully now, I'll be able to create more los at a faster pace.

This is the latest lo I made. Did this around 2 weeks ago but wasn't able to post it right away since the kids got sick a week ago. Picture was taken last October. I bought the book “Once Upon a Potty” to encourage my youngest daughter, Ava to start going to the potty. It seems even Reese enjoys listening to the story of Prudence and her new potty.

Journaling reads on pull out tag: On most nights, we read a book before bedtime. It varies from time to time but when they were younger "Love you Forever" was an all time favorite. By reading to them, I hope to instill the love for reading because until now that is something that I truly enjoy doing and learning from.



Materials used: Fancy pants pps, DCWV cardstock, American crafts thickers prancer chipboard letter sticker, misc ribbon, prima flowers, color box cocoa ink, zig pen, spare parts flower brads, imaginisce timepieces rubons