field camp

it's been a very bad week.



had a field camp in tekong (that wonderful island!) from mon to thurs.
Well, when I say 'had', I mean that I was actually physically there,
with the rest of my wing. But because I had the dubious distinction of
being the first person to report sick, I didn't actually get to do
anything.



it all started when I woke up with a fever on monday. Felt really bad,
but because we were leaving for tekong early in the morning there was
no way for me to stay back in camp. Had to carry my gear and go along
with the rest. So there I was with a whole load of stuff (coz by some
good fortune it was my turn to be section i/c) and a 38+ temp, running
around with everyone else, in the frenzy of setting up. Finally got
time to see the medic in the afternoon, and was evacuated to the tekong
medical centre. Took forever to see the MO (although by comparison to
British standards this was probably damn quick), and eventually they
put in on drip in sickbay for the rest of the day (and night).



after one restless night spent shivering in sickbay (BMTC must spend a
fortune on aircon bills), i got discharged on tues morning and promptly
sent back to our field camp site. But the fever didn't go away. On wed
morning the medic took a temp of 38.8 and had enough. He sent me back
to the medical centre, where after the customary 45min++++ spent
shivering in the waiting room another MO simply said 'you need rest'
and put me back on drip again. This time though, it was only for 4
hours. Which, I suppose, was enough 'rest'.



but that wasn't the end. Either the BMTC medical centre or the medic's
thermometer uses a different version of the celsius scale. While my
temp consistently hit 38+ outfield, the highest it reached in the
medical centre was 37.7 (and it even registered 37.1 a couple times).
It was highly frustrating having to go report sick and being treated
with disbelief, so much so that I almost quarrelled with the medic on
wed night when the fever refused to go away and he wanted me to go
report sick again. But in the end I had to go.



the 3rd MO to see me was quite nice. He took the time to explain to me
that it was a viral infection that was causing all this misery, and the
only way to cure it was to get lots of water and rest and let my immune
system carry on with the job. Finally knowing the situation made a lot
of difference to me somehow; felt a lot better when I left the medical
centre on wed night. Maybe the fact that they didn't put me on drip
this time helped.



field camp ended on thurs afternoon. Went back to OCS still feeling
weak but definitely better. Still, unlucky me had to be appointed
armskote i/c (the armskote is the place where all the platoon's weapons
are kept. Armskote i/c is one of the most siong jobs, like toilet i/c).
And to make things worse, because an inspection's due on tuesday, there
was a hell of a lot of stuff to do in the armskote (and there still is
arrrrgh). On the bright side, I'm only going to be i/c for one more
week; after that i'll be free (woohoo).



friday and saturday passed in a daze - literally. But at least I
managed to sleep 9 hours last night, so now I'm feeling approximately
normal. The virus is still there somewhere, giving me a bad cough and
playing havoc with my respiratory system (it was no joke trying to run
5km while choking on phlegm yest morning). Still, this week has been a
major disappointment. I missed out on all the fun, didn't get many
chances to bond with my section mates, and it was all damn siong
nonetheless. Not many positives to take out of it.



2005 can only get better.