Fever!

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It’s been eight days since Kyla first got her fever on Kapas Island. Since then, we’ve taken two flights, two boats, eight car rides, stayed in five hotels, seen two doctors and said goodbye to my parents as they head back to England. It’s been a busy week!



Kyla had had a persistently high fever for a night and the whole next day before we made a snap decision to leave the Island and head to the mainland to be closer to a hospital. As it was election time, the locals were on holiday for a four day weekend (Malaysians are ALWAYS on holiday!) and we were warned that hotels might be full. Luckily, the first place we checked had a family room and we settled in. It was nice to have a room with hot water in the shower and no sand in the bed (and no snakes in the bathroom!)



The next day we met my parents at the airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. Once there, the mishaps started to roll in again. The airport shuttle wasn’t big enough for us all so we ended up waiting for ages while they arranged another. Handily for us, it turned out there was a children’s clinic just a block away from our hotel. I was just heading out the door to make an appointment for Kyla when Jake stepped on a shelf between the beds in an attempt to avoid “hot lava.” This caused the shelf to droop about 45 degrees, sending everything on it crashing to the ground, including four drinking glasses. There was broken glass absolutely everywhere! Just as we were finishing cleaning it up, Scott whacked his head on the shelf, putting a gash in his head. By the time we’d stopped the bleeding on that, we’d been delayed considerably, but off I went to make an appointment. The clinic looked nice, with cute decals all over the walls and photos of babies in utero taken by the latest and greatest 3D imaging devices - a good sign. I got Kyla’s name down and was told it would be about a 90 minute wait. In the meantime, I ran to the supermarket to stock up on supplies we’d need in case we did make it to our next remote Island. These included black garbage bags to be used as makeshift blackout blinds.



An hour later I checked back with the clinic, and they were ready for us. Kyla was pretty nervous but mostly played along. The doctor recommended taking a blood sample to test for dengue fever and we agreed. Unfortunately, after trying for a few minutes, she couldn’t get any blood. Meanwhile Kyla was crying and screaming the place down, poor thing. In the end we had no choice but to leave with our prescription for antibiotics, just in case it was a bacterial thing. By now, Jake and I had both become feverish, though not as much as Kyla, and were not feeling great. We headed to McDonalds to get an ice cream and pretty much called it dinner. By that time it was getting closer to bedtime and everyone was tired and cranky. We only managed a quick goodbye with my parents before flopping into bed. They had a 7am airport shuttle the next morning and, given the nights we’d had recently, I suspected I’d not make it out to say another goodbye. I was right. It was a tough night filled with checking fevers and trying to get sleepy cranky kids to take their medicine, at the same time as feeling crappy myself. It wasn’t the most eloquent ending to our time together.



The next morning we decided to monitor fevers and decide whether we took our 6pm flight to Cebu city in The Philippines, or whether to just hop onto a $50 flight to Bangkok to see our favorite doctor. We got to the airport soon after noon and ran some airport errands while we decided. By 3pm, Kyla and Jake both only had low fevers so we decided to check our bags into Air Asia - decision made, we were flying to The Philippines. We felt ok about it as we’d read up on hospitals in Cebu city and there just happened to be a well-ranked International Hospital just a five minute drive from our new hotel, just in case we needed it.



After arriving at Kuala Lumpur airport 6 hours ahead of our flight, it was delayed by almost 2.5 hours. This was hugely inconvenient as it meant we didn’t land at Cebu until midnight. We then had to stand in the monster of all immigration lines for over an hour to get into the country. When we finally made it to baggage claim, I held my breath. I was sure one or more of our bags would be missing, but luckily we quickly found all three. We headed to get some money but the ATMs were all down and a Chinese tour group just beat us to the only money changer open. Thankfully, we’d decided to bite the bullet at Kuala Lumpur airport before leaving and had changed $100 at terrible rates. It was worth it in retrospect!



We hopped into a taxi and was taken through the dark streets. I was surprised by how many people were out and about at 2am. It was more like 11pm back home. We checked into our hotel and checked fevers - still high, now on both kids. The lady Scott had sat next to on the flight over had been a medical student and convinced Scott that we should get Kyla tested for dengue fever. We agreed because we didn’t want to be heading to a remote island not knowing. She said it was better to go very early in the morning or in the middle of the night to avoid long waits. As we were getting ready to go to bed, Scott asked me if we should just put our clothes back on and go for it, with the hope of still making our 11am transfer pick-up the next day. By now it was 3am and we’d not slept a wink so I convinced him to just go to bed. We did set an alarm for the next day at 6am, though.



A 6am wake up call after a 3am bedtime isn’t fun, but we quickly hopped out of bed and got dressed and ready as quickly as possible. By 6:45am we were walking into the emergency room (as directed) of the Chong Hua Hospital. As soon as we got through the doors, Kyla freaked out and started screaming and pulling towards the door. We somehow managed to get her through the initial screenings such as weight, height, blood pressure before being taken to see a doctor. I had to carry her the whole time as she was so distraught after her failed blood-taking experience the day before. The doctors confirmed that we needed a blood test, so it all started again. We warned the nurse that we’d had a hard time finding a vein the day before and also in the past when she’d had blood drawn in Bali. Poor lady, we put a lot of pressure on her, but she was great and did it the first time. We were so relieved and thanked her profusely. The results generally come back in 3-4 hours, which meant we’d miss our transfer to the next Island. I asked if we could pay more to expedite the results and they did it in one hour. The best $20 I’ve spent! The results came back clear from dengue. It was just a viral infection, so we stopped the antibiotics we’d been given in KL and just moved to watching fevers. By now Kyla was in fact fever-free and Jake was the one with a higher fever. We thought about testing him but decided it was most likely the same as Kyla.





By 10am we were leaving the hospital and heading back to our hotel to pack. When we got back, our transfer was there waiting for us. In no time at all we’d packed and were on our way to Cabilao Island.

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