There is no dengue in Japan!

26 August 2014

Amanda called me to her room in the early morning. I was shocked to see her skin covered in rashes. Her face and body was raging hot. She kept on vomiting.

One look at her and I knew that it was the deadly dengue!

I prayed for her and asked her to shower and go down for breakfast. We had to seek the advice of the tour leader on what we should do. We were actually due to travel to Hamamatsu about 4 hours out of Osaka and to visit some other places. 

Amanda could not eat or drink anything. She kept on vomiting and complained of headaches. She also started having eye pain and the eyes became light sensitive, all symptoms of dengue. I gave her my dark glasses and someone gave her a hat to wear.

Despite all these we got on the bus and traveled to Nara Park, Peace Palace. Amanda and I sat and rested in the bus while the others went out for photo taking and sightseeing. Our tour leader went around looking for 100 plus. Being the second time, she got inflicted by dengue, we had the experience to know that drinking lots of 100 plus while help in the recovery.

However we were not in Malaysia but in Japan where there was no 100 plus! The tour leader bought an isotonic drink called Aquarius which he said had the same ingredients like 100 plus. 

Amanda being the pharmacy student that she was said that Aquarius did not equal 100 plus. Some important ingredient was missing. Anyway she drank one bottle and ended up vomiting everything.

The good thing was that Amanda had a good apetite and she did not vomit out her lunch!

After the traditional Japanese lunch at Nara Park where deers roam around freely, we visited a few more places before the 4-hour drive to Hamamatsu. A part of me was praying that she would recover as I did not want to miss this maiden trip to Japan. I sent a text to Pastor Khor via viber. He immediately called me and prayed for Amanda. 

She slept all the way in the bus and so did I. The fever did not go off neither did the vomiting. I was getting worried.

We had a good dinner at a Sumo restaurant. This restaurant was opened by a famous Sumo wrestler in Japan. Again we sat on the floor and ate delicious vegetables, chicken and taufoo from a big pot. The soup was delicious and so was the udon that went with it.

At night, the tour leaders took us to a private hospital. The doctor on duty did not know what was dengue. We tried to tell him the symptoms yet he was not sure. Eventually his nurse told him that the disease had not been seen in Japan for the past 10 years! The doctor referred to a medical book and told us that he was unable to treat Amanda.

He wrote a referral letter for us to go the big hospital for treatment. Medication (look like the Japanese version of panadol) was given. The cost was about 5.8k yen which Allan said was reasonable.

I now had two choices: checked her into the local hospital to be put on the drip or take the next flight home.

The first option was going to inconvenience the whole tour as it was going to disrupt the others. Further none of us could speak Japanese save for Allan. Tim and I also brought only 70k yen between us which would be insufficient for the hospital fees. The tour leader told us that he had a case where relatives had to fly in from Malaysia to bring money to pay for the hospital fees! Japanese hospital do not accept credit cards!

The second option seemed to be the best alternative. Rather than spend time and money in the local hospital, it would be better for us to use the money to buy two tickets home.

That night when I saw blood spots on her hand (internal bleeding) I knew that I had to act. Ben helped me to book two tickets home. The only challenge was the timing. The flight home on Thursday was from Kansai, Osaka at 11 am. The first bullet train (Shinkansen) out of Hamamatsu was 6:35 am. Can we make it in time?

What I did not know was that the church was praying for us. It was Wednesday and there was corporate prayer. I would be there at 7:30 pm to prepare the place for the corporate prayer meeting. Pastor later told me that members joined hands together to pray for Amanda. 

It was that night that I thought I was going to lose her. I led her to pray a prayer of re-dedication. I also prayed to release her to the Lord. She could not sleep due to the raging fever. I kept on sponging her.