Let’s continue my story of how to spend the lockdown sick in your bed, shall we?

As I was saying in my last article, I came back to Switzerland sick as hell with dengue fever while the country was under a soft lockdown. I started getting better day by day, but it was not amazing progress either. It just meant I had some saliva back, could eat a bit and stand for 10 minutes before being exhausted. However, I still had horrible headaches, was out of breath for nothing and had to drink around 5 liters per day. But well, it was better than before with a constant fever, vertigo, not being able to eat anything, not being able to bend down because it felt like my lungs were crushed, drinking 10 liters of water a day and still feeling dehydrated.

However, approximately 10 days after coming back, I started having a fever again. I completely freaking out because normally once Dengue fever passes, it doesn’t come back. So in my head having a fever meant that I had caught the Covid-19 (I didn’t). I was feeling really stressed so after 2 days of fever I went to see a doctor specialized in tropical illnesses (since here we don’t have dengue fever, a random doctor wouldn’t know what to do). Long story short, I completely made him freak out because my heart was beating at 170 beats per minutes. The heart normally beats around 60-80 bpm and can go to 170 bpm after a hardcore sport session. Let’s say that getting out of my bed and going to the doctor’s shouldn’t make my heart beat this fast. But at least it explained why I was exhausted all the time! Anyway, he booked me an appointment with a cardiologist the next day (which means it was very urgent otherwise you have to wait weeks/months to get an appointment…) and he tested me for the Coronavirus AGAIN. It was my third (and I hope last) time to get this test.

My appointment with the cardiologist went relatively well. My heart was completely healthy and normal which was a good thing. On the other side, there was absolutely no reason for it beating so fast so I got a drug prescription to slow down my heart rate while we kept looking for the reason.

After the cardiologist, I was sent to a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, a week later. I had to do a bunch of tests a few times (like not drinking for 16 hours… while being dehydrated let me tell you, it was not a fun exercice) but it finally lead to some answers. By the time we understood what was going on, I was slowly getting better but I was so happy to know what was going on with my body.

So, according to my doctor, in some very rare cases the dengue can touch a part of the brain that controls hormones, kidney, etc. and made everything dysfunction. Well apparently I was in the very rare case since in my case, the dengue caused a bleeding in this area of my brain, wrecking havoc in my whole body. It is so scary to think I was actually bleeding and could have died from a hemorrhage without knowing it but it feels good to finally know why I had such weird symptoms. Suddenly, the constant horrible headache made so much sense! It was so painful that I was not able to watch my phone screen for more than 2 seconds, I felt like throwing up every time I moved because the pain was too high but when you know that my brain was bleeding, well it puts things into perspective. It also made sense that I got my periods 3 times in a month and a half, my hormones were touched by the bleeding and went crazy as well. To be honest, I was feeling so sick I didn’t pay attention to my period but thinking back, it was very weird to get them so close and randomly. And finally, it made my kidneys dysfunctioned, they were actually not working anymore. When I was drinking 10 liters of water, I was peeing 10 liters of water. That explained why I had to go to the toilet every 20 minutes and why I couldn’t hydrate myself. Being dehydrated so badly made my skin peels on my whole body (I felt like a snake but at least I was not sweating so no allergy hahaha). All my organs were crying for water and my heart couldn’t handle everything so it sped up like crazy. It also explains the stabbing pain in my lungs since they were also out of water.

It explained all of my symptoms but for me, the most important was that it explained the gut feeling I had. For 2 months, I thought I was dying. I don’t know how to explain it, it never happened to me before (and I hope it never will again) but I had the feeling deep down that my body was shutting down and that at any moment, I would just stop breathing. It is so scary and I was alone with my thoughts all the time. I couldn’t sleep because I was going to the bathroom every 20 minutes (days and nights), I couldn’t watch anything because I had horrible headache so I just had this thought in my head all the time that at one point I would pass out and never wake up.

People didn’t believe me (and I think for the most part they still don’t). Everybody told me I was exaggerating because that’s normally how it is, right? People use « dying » all the time without really thinking about it (me included). But this time, when I said time and time again: « Something is wrong with me, I am slowly dying » I was 100% serious (and 100% scared out of my life). Just thinking about it now, 3 months later, it still makes me anxious and on the verge of crying. The first time this feeling came was when I was still in Malaysia and it was my first meltdown. I just couldn’t stop crying because I realized I was away from home and I was dying. Since everybody was telling me I was just freaking out, I also thought that I was crazy to think this and I should change my mindset. But it was not a mindset, it was really a feeling I had and couldn’t explain it. But now, knowing what happened makes me think that it was my brain sending me emergency alert. At least, that’s how I explain this feeling, it is the only way it makes sense. What makes me think even more that it was really true is that before we got the result of all my tests, one day I knew it was going to be okay, I was not dying anymore. We still didn’t know what I had, I was still taking medicine but I said to my doctor with certainty « It is getting better, I can feel it » and it was true. While I might never get back to how healthy I was before this whole ordeal, at least I have the feeling that my body is healing and I trust it.

So, that’s basically how I spend my lockdown. I think I was actually lucky to fall sick at this time because all the clinics and hospitals I went to were empty and very secured. For 2 months, I left my house only to go to my doctors’ appointments (in Switzerland, we had a soft lockdown, people were allowed to go outside as long as they respected the social distance of 2 meters and were a group of 5 maximum). I really have to thank my brother who brought me my groceries every week to my door. He even cancelled a work meeting 5 minutes before it started to drive me to the hospital (because I had an anxiety attack before going to my appointment ^^’). I don’t know what I would have done without him.

Now, 3 months after all of this, how do I feel? Well, way better obviously. However, I can’t say my life went back to normal. Of course, with the pandemic nobody’s life is normal at the moment but even outside of Covid-19 I’m not back to how I was. I have to be careful to stay hydrated and need to drink 2 to 3 liters of water, some days I can go up to 5 liters depending on what I do. I am still easily exhausted when I go up stairs or walk a bit too fast. I get headaches very often and easily (too much sun, too much screen time, too much noise, hungry, not enough sleep, not drank enough water, etc.). I almost don’t drink alcohol anymore because it makes me dehydrated very fast and gives me a headache. And I am losing a lot of hair. Apparently, it is normal and should get better in the next few weeks but I lost at least half of my hair. Good thing I had a lot of hair, otherwise I would be bald already. On the good side, I am gaining my weight back (I don’t know how much I lost in total since when I weighed myself I was eating again but it was at least 10 kilos if not more). I can’t tell how many times I wanted to punch people who told me « I am jealous! You lost weight during the lockdown! If I knew it I would get sick as well » YOU FREAKING IDIOT! How can you tell somebody who was sick that they are lucky they lost weight (when they obviously look way underweight)?! Anyway, since I gained most of my weight back, people stopped telling me this kind of bullshit so I am very happy.

To conclude, even though I have to be more careful and my body is not as healthy as before, I feel that I am lucky I was able to recover this well. Maybe it will recover completely in the next months, maybe not but even if it stays like this, I can live a pretty normal life so I am happy. Now, I am just annoyed at people making fun of me because of all the precautions I take to avoid getting Covid-19. First, why would you make fun of anybody for this?! You’re the idiot if you don’t protect yourself… I should make fun of you instead. Secondly, I don’t want to get it and spread it to people I know and love. Thirdly, I don’t know how my body would take it so I prefer to avoid getting a second virus, thank you very much.

Wah, that was a very long story! I am not even sure it makes a lot of sense but I wanted to write it in order to remember it. And I am not sure anybody will read all of this but if you did, thank you very much! That was the story of how catching dengue fever during a pandemic is not a very good idea haha.

Today, I am not going to talk about my allergy. The topic of today is how my holidays went wrong. My experience is nothing compared to what is happening in the world right now with the pandemic but it was still somewhat traumatizing for me so I wanted to write about it.

I finished my job in February and decided that I would take a month off to travel. My plan was to go to Malaysia to visit friends and then go back to Korea where I lived for a year previously. Unfortunately, with the coronavirus going around, I had to cancel the Korean part of my itinerary. However, Switzerland (where I am from) and Malaysia seemed not to be too affected so I decided to go see my friends. I know it wasn’t a good period to travel and thinking back I should have cancelled the whole trip but it is always easier to make decisions when you know how events unfolded, right?

Anyway, my first week in Malaysia went well, I was very happy. I discovered a lot of places and had a great time with my friends. Even though the cases of Covid-19 was growing at an alarming rate in Switzerland, I tried not to think about it too much. But then, on the second week of my trip, I suffered from a heatstroke. I felt feverish, weak, big headache and I was not hungry. I rested for a day but the next day I went out for breakfast with my friends since we had to check out from our Airbnb to go back to Kuala Lumpur (we were in the North of Malaysia). During breakfast, I proceeded to almost throw up on myself and pass out in the middle of the restaurant. Seeing how I was doing, my friends drove me to a clinic where I got told it was heatstroke. I had to drink a lot of water, stay in the shadow or indoors if possible and it was going to pass in a day or two. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary since it was more than 40°C outside and my body is not used to this climate. We booked a new Airbnb for 2 nights because I couldn’t travel in a car for 6 hours in my state (we were supposed to go back to my friend’s place) and I rested for 2 days. However, after 2 days I still didn’t feel good. I still had a fever, loss of appetite and just feeling really really weak. To make matter worse, one of my friend started to have the exact same symptoms and was diagnosed with heatstroke as well. So we booked yet another Airbnb for 2 nights to rest more. It was so stressful because we always had to check out of a place and urgently find a new place while still trying to be in our budget but thankfully my third friend (the only one not sick) handled everything very well. At the same time, on the other side of the world in Switzerland, they decided to start the lockdown because of the Coronavirus and closed part of the borders. I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to go home but the priority was too get better first.

After resting for 4 days, I still felt very weak and couldn’t eat anything. My throat was very dry and I had no saliva at all (which makes it very hard to swallow any food…). At this point, we started to worry that my friend and I had the coronavirus. After all, we were always going around with a lot of people around us. Even though we were wearing masks and sanitizing our hands as often as possible, we could still have caught it. So the next day, we visited a hospital to get tested but they completely freaked out when they realized I was from Europe, arrived less than 14 days ago and I had a fever. I was already feeling horrible but they made me feel even worse because they were clearly scared of me. We had to stay in a special tent outside the hospital for hours before a doctor took our vitals (remember, I have a fever and outside is more than 40 degrees). Once done, he told us that it takes 2 to 3 days to get the result of the Covid’s test so since we were young, it was useless to do it and to just go home and quarantine ourselves… So we waited almost 3 hours to get a doctor telling us that he doesn’t want to test us for the Covid-19 and to just go home and rest… that was a great advice…

Let’s just say we were quite depressed that they didn’t want to test us. At this point, we decided to go back to Kuala Lumpur (6 hours drive) and went to a government hospital to ask to be tested. However, they were only testing people coming from some countries (not Switzerland) and/or having been in direct contact with patients. We realized we couldn’t go back to my friend’s house since if we had the coronavirus, we would infect her family. So at 8pm, in a hospital’s parking, we were looking for an Airbnb place that would accept such a late request. We found a place and did the check-in. At this point, I finally decided to call my mom to tell her what was going on. I avoided telling her I was sick until then because I figured that I would get better and it was useless to let her worry for nothing. But I really felt wanted to talk to her so I called and I had a breakdown on the phone which was not the best way to tell her I was sick on the other side of the world… but I couldn’t help myself. Obviously she got very worried and didn’t sleep until the day I landed in Switzerland, I still feel really bad for her to this day.

Anyway, the next day (it was Tuesday, my flight was on Thursday), we heard of another hospital testing people showing symptoms so we went there and I was able to get tested (only because I came from Europe… my friend who had the same symptoms as I did was not allowed to get tested). Again, hours waiting in a tent outside but this time the doctor actually did the test *victory dance*. It doesn’t hurt but it is very uncomfortable. After the test, I decided to show her my hands full of red dots. It had started a few days ago but I didn’t really pay attention until this day. One look at it and she decided to also do the dengue test. This test takes just a few minutes and the result were… positive. I had dengue fever. I just wanted to cry because dengue fever is also a virus, so there is no treatment for it. You just need to drink a lot of water and hope your body will fight against it. I was told to come back the next day to get a blood test to see how my white cells were reacting and to wait 2-3 days for the Coronavirus’ test’s results.

With dengue fever, you have to be careful of not bleeding, diarrhea and throwing up. The afternoon, I had diarrhea, felt like throwing up but forced myself not to (and to couple everything, I was on my period…). Let’s just say that I was depressed and desperate. I couldn’t see the light at the end, it was just getting worse and worse everyday so I had a breakdown again. Thankfully, my 2 friends were awesome and comforted me while I was bowling my eyes out, trying to tell them « don’t touch me I might have the coronavirus » but just being able to sob and say something intelligible. The same night, my sick friend started to get red patches on her hands as well. She decided to go and get tested for dengue. I stayed at the Airbnb alone, waiting for my 2 friends to come back. Well, my healthy friend came back alone at 3am because my sick friend had dengue fever as well and the hospital decided to admit her. It depressed me even more because I would have been able to get admitted if only there was not this coronavirus hanging on my head.

The next day (Wednesday), the lockdown began in Malaysia. Malaysians were not allowed to travel anymore but it was not very clear if foreigners could still leave the country or not. I just prayed that I would be able to go back home. I went to do my blood test and the result was kind of similar to the day before. So not getting worse but not getting better either. I stayed in the Airbnb alone while my friend went to visit my other friend at the hospital. The problem was that when I was alone, I would think of the worst case scenario and just begin to panic so I would call my mom or my brother to try to calm myself. My flight was supposed to be the next day but I had to postpone it because 1) I was not fit to travel 2) I still haven’t gotten my coronavirus test result. But postponing my flight might mean not going back because everyday Switzerland came with more and more rules for the lockdown, one of them being that only Swiss people or Swiss residents can enter Switzerland. So I could definitely see the border closing soon. Plus Malaysia was also on lockdown and we didn’t know if the road to the airport was still open. And a lot of flights started to get cancelled. Again, I stayed alone while my friend was visiting my other friend. It was horrible, I couldn’t stop the horrible thought in my mind. I called my best friend and asked her to tell me about her life but I was not listening, I just kept thinking of what would happen to me (it was never a good ending). During the evening, my friend came back and was able to motivate me a bit because my other friend was getting better and would be able to get discharged the next day. I decided to fight and not give up (not like I had any other option anyway…).

Thurday arrived and I went again to check my blood. However, I went to a small clinic because the government hospital was full of sick people + people getting tested for covid-19 so I didn’t feel safe. The result was worse than the last 2 days. My white cells were diminishing… I took this very hard because I had been drinking more than 6 liters of water per day, I was resting, I was trying to eat a bit but instead of getting better, I was getting even sicker. I didn’t know what to do to change it. I really wanted to get admitted to the hospital but again, I needed to prove the I didn’t have the covid-19 to be accepted..

When I thought it couldn’t get worse, the hospital called to tell me that they couldn’t read my covid-19 test so I had to do it again and wait 2 to 3 days again for the result! I think Thursday was the worse day for me for my mental health. I really wanted to just give up and breakdown in the middle of the street because nothing was going well. My friend, seeing I was really on my last straw decided to take me to a private hospital where you had to pay for the test but you got the result the next day. Even though she was healthy, she decided to do it as well just to make sure she didn’t have it. I did the test but felt very weak and depressed. I tried to get admitted to the hospital but they were adamant: no test result, no admitting for dengue fever. Of course, I can totally understand this decision, it is the most sensible one, you don’t want a covid patient going around your hospital but it was very hard for me at this moment. I was getting worse and I didn’t see any solution apart from getting an IV drip to help me get re-hydrated.

Finally, on Friday things started to look better. My blood cells went up a lot so I was very happy and motivated again. I was still waiting for my coronavirus test and therefore I was very tense but at least my body was winning the fight against dengue. On the way to the hospital to pick up my friend, I got the call from the hospital telling me that my test came back negative. I felt so relieved, I didn’t even know I felt so tense. It felt like a whole new world was opening to me, I finally saw the light at the end. It meant we could go home to my friend’s house, I was able to enter the hospital to pick up my friend and it meant I would maybe be able to catch my flight the next day. Why did I rebook my flight only 2 days after my original flight? Because it was the last flight flying from Kuala Lumpur to Geneva (with one stop). If I couldn’t make it to this flight, I would have to book a new one with another airline, hoping it won’t be cancelled (only Emirates still operated flight from Malaysia to Switzerland but they stopped as well a few days later).

We went home where my mom’s friend was so relieved to see us she kept cooking and feeding us every 2-3 hours (I was still not able to eat a lot but she understood). On Saturday morning, I went to my (what I was hoping) last blood test. I was still improving so I was very happy but the doctor still didn’t feel comfortable letting me take a 16 hours journey. She told me I was very weak and my immune system was so low that if I caught the coronavirus my body wouldn’t be able to fight. I explained the situation with the different countries slowly closing their borders and at the end she agreed to let me go. She told me that I had to stay at home and not go out for any reason and to check my temperature every day. If I threw up or had a fever, I had to go straight to the hospital.

So on Saturday night, my friends dropped me off at the deserted airport. All the shops were closed and only a few foreigners (only 2 flights were leaving at this time, all the others were cancelled) were walking around waiting for their flights. I kept my distance and arrived in Switzerland on Sunday afternoon. I was very tired but very happy to be back, even though Switzerland has way more cases than Malaysia.

It has now been a week since I came back. I didn’t leave my house at all and I stay 2 meters away from my 2 flatmates at all times. I am getting better, a few days ago I finally got saliva again and let me tell you, it changed my life. I can know eat normally and I can drink « only » 2 liters of water a day. I am still really scared to catch the coronavirus since I am at risk but I really hope everything will go well. I see that everyday the number of cases keep increasing so it is a bit depressing but I tell myself that it would get better, it has to get better.

What I omitted in this very long story is that every time, and I really mean every time, I would go the clinic/hospital (and I went there A LOT), everybody was scared of me. Because a foreigner in a hospital can only mean one thing at the moment: Coronavirus. I understand them but I still felt sad to see their reactions. Once, a nurse didn’t even want to talk to me even though we both had masks and there was a glass between us. She freaked out when she saw me and just stopped thinking. It pissed off my friend so much, she wanted to curse her out haha. Finally, the nurse asked her colleague to talk to me and everything went well.

So… you think this is the end right? I thought so as well… but let me tell you, 2 days after writing this article, I felt sick again… so now I need to write the part 2 of how-I-thought-I-was-going-to-die because of dengue fever ^^’. Now 2 months after coming back, I really hope I am done with all of this!

Today, I am going to talk about a recent event that I am quite ashamed of. I took stupid decisions after stupid decisions that made something very easy becoming something very complicated.

It all started because we decided to celebrate one of my friend’s 30th birthday. We were around 10 guests, 2 of them were organizing everything. The plan was to book an entire day to make a memorable trip in my country (I am so afraid that one of them will read this that I don’t want to say in which country I’m from… yes, I am deeply ashamed). We had a great program planned and we were all really looking forward to this day.

Problems arose when we checked the weather forecast and realized that it will rain. Now, what we had planned was an outside activity so it was kind of a bummer. The organizers decided to cancel everything and find another plan (we were Tuesday, it was for Saturday). I was quite happy because I really didn’t want to stand in the rain for hours… as you can imagine.

The organizers came with 3 other activities we could do, they were really amazing. We all voted for the same one so we were quite happy to have find a Plan B so fast. However, one of my friend then suggested that since the activity took place near a famous wellness center, we could go the thermal baths and spa afterwards. Everybody was really happy about the suggestion. From this point on, I began to act like an idiot so be prepared.

So, I am allergic to water… let’s say that I was not thrilled at all with the idea to go to thermal baths and/or a spa. Staying in warm water for hours is not appealing to me because it means I will enjoy the first 10 minutes, then my skin will start to get itchy and burning so I will need to act like I’m fine when I am definitely not. Even after the baths, it will take me hours for my skin reaction to stop so let’s just say I avoid thermal baths.

Anyway, the logical thing to do in this situation would have been to say that I can’t go to thermal baths so it would be better to find something else to do, right? Well, that’s not what I did. You have to know that I HATE to be an inconvenience to people. I will literally try to do ANYTHING to avoid asking people for help. I also hate having to say no when somebody ask me for a helping hand. So, since everybody was so happy with the suggestion, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them I wasn’t. I just didn’t say anything about it. For one entire day, I tortured myself to find a solution. I even thought: « Well, would it really kill you to go to the thermal baths? Can’t you do this for your friends? You’ll get better the next day, just roll with it » and I think if I was a bit younger that’s what I would have done. But, even though I am stupid, I knew that I couldn’t do this.

After torturing myself and talking about it with my best friend (who couldn’t understand why I didn’t say anything in the first place haha), I decided that I just had to say that I would go to the activity, eat lunch with them and then leave before going to the wellness center. That’s reasonable and understandable, right? Well, let’s not forget that I made a lot of stupid decisions, OK?

However, when we decided where to go for lunch (on the same day as the thermal baths was decided), somebody suggested a restaurant and we all agreed (me included). What I didn’t realize though was that the restaurant was located next to the wellness center. Now, the plan was to go by car to our activity (I don’t have a car, one of my friend was picking me up), which was located 15 minutes away from the closest train station. Then, we would go to a village in the MOUNTAIN for lunch and thermal baths. At least 45 minutes away from the closest train station. See my problem? If I were to tell them that I couldn’t go to the thermal baths, somebody would have to drive me down to the train station and then come back to the village, losing 1 and a half hour just because of me.

I couldn’t even bring myself to ask, I would have been too ashamed to make somebody lose this time for me. So I thought: « Well, I can just do the activity and then ask to be dropped to the train station before they go for lunch » but at this point it was Friday, and I was already really ashamed of my stupid ass. I realized that if I was going to tell them this only now, they would ask why I didn’t say anything sooner. So, do you know what I did? NOTHING! I didn’t say anything!

And then, to top off my stupidity… on Saturday morning, the day of the trip (2 hours before the meeting point), I texted them to say that I was feeling SICK and wouldn’t be able to join them… was I feeling sick? Not at all! But I was so panicked about what to do that I decided it was better if I didn’t go at all to not bother them.

Let’s just say that now I am really angry at myself for lying and not going. All of this would have been avoided if I just SAID something when they suggested thermal baths. We would have found something else to do or at least found a restaurant close to the train station so I could join for lunch. The worst is that I am sure nobody would have been mad at me if I just asked them at the beginning.

I guess the problem lies in the fact that this allergy is rare and very unknown. I know most of the time, people don’t take it very seriously because they have never heard of it and don’t realize what it implies. So now, I guess I hate having to explain myself and I prefer to worry for days and find a stupid solution instead…

If anybody ever reads this blog, I would love to hear some of your stupid choices, it would make me feel better about my own stupidity, please? ^^’

I still don’t know what kind of content I will post on this blog but today I want to talk about one horrible lunch break I had during the summer.

My office is not located in the city center so normally we just stay at the office to eat lunch. However, one hot summer day, I really had to go to the bank to sign a paper so I decided that my 1 hour lunch break was enough time to make the trip, see somebody at the bank and go back to the office. Well… in theory it works since it takes around 20 minutes to go to the bank from my office. So 40 minutes both ways in bus and metro + 20 minutes in the bank, it could work. Buuuuut spoiler: Nop, it was not enough time.

It started well, it was around 35 degrees Celsius that day but I was able to walk to the bus stop without sweating. Yes, that’s a weird victory but for me sweating is the hardest thing to control with my condition. To walk on a hot day, I need to control my pace otherwise I will have to stop after 5 minutes because I will get red patches everywhere and it will be really hard not to scratch my body. And I am not talking about dripping sweat, I am talking about just the beginning when you start to feel your skin gets more humid. Well, for me this stage is enough to get itchy rash so I try not to walk too fast, to wear light clothing and to stay in the shadow as much as I can.

Anyway, it all started well but then my bus was late. Since the bus was late, I missed the metro I wanted to take. No problem, I thought, I’ll just take the next one. However, after waiting for 15 minutes an announcement was made that the metro line was stopped because of a technical problem. I left the office at 12:00, it was already 12:30 and my flatmate was queuing at the bank (we had to go together to sign something for our flat). I decided to take a bus instead of the metro but I had to run to catch it, that’s when I almost gave up. I really didn’t want to start sweating excessively because I knew I will have a horrible rest of the day. But at the same time, I couldn’t just abandon my flatmate at the bank since my signature was needed. It is the kind of decision I hate making because I always choose to « sacrifice » my body. So in the end, I decided to run until the bus stop knowing I would hate myself afterwards.

I went on the bus and finally arrived at a bus stop close to the bank at 12:50. On the way, I called a colleague to tell him I will be late (he had to wait for me to come back in order to go eat). I ran from the bus stop to the bank so as you can imagine, I was dripping wet from running all the way and in the sun. I arrived right on time, when it was our turn to see a bank employee. However, I was stressed + my whole body was itching so bad I thought I would burst in flames (or just start to have a meltdown and cry in the middle of the bank…). I was trying to concentrate so hard that my hands were shaking. My flatmate asked me to calm down 3 times, thinking I was stressed about being late to the office. I just ignored him (it was too much effort to talk more than necessary anyway) and just gave the entire files I had to the bank employee. She didn’t need all of them but she was nice enough to check all the papers and take only the necessary ones. Or maybe I was just such a mess she thought it was easier and faster this way.

I left the bank at 13:10 and decided to take yet another bus number (longer way but no change necessary since the metro was not running) to go back to the office. In my city, there are two kind of bus: the « new » ones with air conditioning and then the « old » ones with stairs to enter the bus and no air conditioning at all. The old buses are getting replaced so I guess they have only around 10% of them left. Well, guess which one I had? Yep, an old one. Mind you, after all the running and the stress of getting the paper signed my body kept sweating more and more to regulate itself so getting in a hot bus without air was not very tempting. But my colleague was waiting for me so I took it and arrived at around 13:40. Let’s just say it was a horrible and not very productive afternoon. I just wanted to scratch my skin raw and was on the verge of crying for a good part of the afternoon. I was not able to concentrate on anything and my mind was just blank. My manager came to talk to me about one of my project and I was not able to follow up the conversation. Thankfully, he just thought I had too much work and told me we could talk about it later.

There is no real conclusion to get from this story, I just wanted to express how such an everyday thing as « running to catch a bus » or « going to the bank » can become something that will ruin my day. Often when people discover my allergy they would ask stuff such as: « How do you shower? » « Well, then you can’t go in the rain, can you? » but nobody ever think about sweating. However, sweating is the worse for me because I can’t control it. I am not saying that other things are easy but I can sort of manage it to an extend. But sweating? No way! It depends on my stress, the temperature, what I am wearing, what I am doing, my hormones… a lot of factors that make it hell to manage.