Got Struck by DHF

Saturday, 18 May 2013, I still kept active till 5pm. I only worked till midday that day, then met my sister at her new apartment and drove her to the airport. Due to the unusual traffic-jammed, I arrived very late at home and decided not to go to the church that evening like I used to do every Saturday. But I can't go and rest immediately. I had promised to deliver laundry to a client at 8pm.

As clocks went by during the waiting time, the temperature of my body slightly arose. Ok, I thought, it must be too fatigue.....so, I took an analgesic pill. When I delivered her laundry, my client also commented that I looked not well enough. That's alright, I told her, I just need a good sleep during weekend...... I should know better...hehehe...

Sunday morning, I woke up still with a rather high fever. The usual analgesic pill I took didn't help too much and I didn't dare to take too many that kind of medicine. My head can't handle the hangover it causes.....hehehe... So, I just stayed home all day and rest, hoped that my temperature would go down. It did on the evening.

Two days fever had left me quite weak, so I decided not to go work on Monday. I just hoped that another day of resting would make me ready to face the world again on Tuesday. Alas, as the day went by, my temperature was back running high again. Made Mom worried and forced me to check my blood to the nearby laboratory on Tuesday morning. The result : my thrombocyte count was only 107,000 from normally above 150,000.....I was positively DHF!

What is DHF? It's Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, usually is caused by a virus from a certain mosquito's' bites. What kind of mosquito? It's called Aedes aegypti. So, it is quite normal, I guess, if the doctor and my visitors asked where I was bitten by those mosquitoes....at home or at work? I think I got them more confused when I said that unlikely there were any mosquitoes at those places.....hehehe... It's true, nevertheless....hehehe....

Anyway, that DHF attack made me had to stay at the hospital for one week, and at some point made my doctor quite panic because my thrombocyte count decreased very rapidly till only 14,000. At that level, I could have nosebleeds or shock. I got neither...hehehe... Even that normal sign of DHF, the blood spots in the skin, appeared on my feet only after the thrombocyte count increased. My doctor said jokingly that maybe the extra fat in my body was the one that had helped me to keep strong.....and I agreed....hehehe...

When I was finally allowed to go home, I think I left something more than just my illness at the hospital. Till now, I still don't know what things had been lost. After three days rest at home, I struggled to get back on the road, back to the old routine....both work and my own business. I preferred it, rather than continuously thinking about the lost things....hehehe...

Very much thanks for my sister who had decided to go home and accompany me during my stay at the hospital. And I hope God bless my Mom who had driven me to and from hospital, and also taken care my laundry business while I was unavailable. I love you all....:)....and the Little One too, of course......:)

Fight and Fight.....

It's been so long since I posted any update of my life. The biggest reason is, I'm still trying hard to keep up with my growing laundry business.

 

Lately, the pick-up, delivery and preliminary proccess of laundry has keep me awake till midnight. Then, early in the morning I have to wake up to continue the second proccess - cleaning and drying. At the moment, there's only two days free of delivery - Wednesdays and Sundays. During those days (either on afternoons or all day of Sundays), I used to help in ironing for some special clients.

 

When a friend wants to hang out with me, I need to plan everything very carefully......I guess it had really made my friends very frustating with me......hehehehhee..... But, no, not only my friends. Even my nephew is sometimes very dissappointed.....hehehe....especially times like this, when school day is out and he's bored staying at home.

 

The biggest news at the moment is, that finally I found my courage and hand-in my resignation to the office. I gave two months notice to my boss to find my replacement. Shouldn't be that difficult, I'm not that unique......hehehehhe.....

 

In Memoriam of Imelda Fridajanti

Frida's Latest Picture (posted on Facebook by March 7)

On Wednesday morning, March 13 while browsing my friends' status on Facebook, my eyes caught a comment in a friend's status. The person wished a Rest-in-Peace for my friend. What??? I opened the whole posting and read from up to bottom. It was said that my friend - Imelda Fridajanti - had an accident while rafting on the previous day and passed away on 4pm in the afternoon. It shocked me, because I still read her posting on Facebook two days before....

Imelda Fridajanti was an old friend from my junior high school. We shared the same class during the first two years. I didn't remember many of my classmates on the junior high school. Frida - that's what we used to call her - was one of the very few I remembered. We separated during the third year. Then I went to a different school for the senior years, while she continued at the same school.

We met again on 2009, 22 years after separated, thanks to Facebook. It was quite surprising that she still remembered me. After that, we kept in touch through Facebook. She liked to post interesting status, that invited her friends to give opinion and sometimes debated...hehehe...

During these last four years, I only met her once. She came to my office during one of her busy day. After that, many times she had invited me to come along in small reunions with other classmates. But I was never able to attend. Firstly, because it was always in a wrong time. Secondly - maybe the biggest reason - because I didn't remember any of other guests. It surely will make me very awkward and feel very out of place....hehehe...

Now, Frida is no longer here anymore. I will miss reading her postings on Facebook. One of her friend mentioned that we had lost a valuable friend, who always actively invited her old friends to reconnect. Farewell, my friend, hope we'll meet again in the next life.....

Life without TV

image source : dreamstime.com

Until last month, I had a quite ancient 16" color TV in my bedroom. It used to belong to my late grandmother who had died more than 10 years ago.... Very old TV, huh? hihihi... Nevertheless, that TV had become my entertainment at the end of my days. Not frequently, though. I used to watch movies on TV after 9pm or on weekends and holidays, when I'm not too lazy and sleepy...hehehe...

Last December, just before Christmas, my TV suddenly couldn't be turned on. Due to the holiday and the family outing plan, it stayed broken till after New Year. It was the first time after soooo many years that I spent New Year's Eve downstairs with my family and shared the TV there....hehehe... Quite annoying, actually. I preferred watching box-office movies, while my sister and Mom wanted to watch a music concert in other TV stations. So, we kept changing channel during commercials break, and made me lost the ending of an interesting movie (that I had already forgotten what the title was....hehehe...)

After New Year, Mom had the TV repaired. But this time, I didn't have enough time and energy to watch TV. My laundry business has been growing bigger and bigger, and I struggled to keep up with the heavy schedule between my formal working hours and the informal ones. At least twice a week, I go to bed not sooner than 10pm and have to wake up again at 4.30 next morning. So, when the TV was broken again a week after being repaired, I . Of course it also means I didn't keep up with latest news and gossips....hehehe... My only source is Mom and Sunday Newspaper (if I have time to read it...hehehe...)

Last week, due to her moving from a boarding room to an apartment, my sister (who knew about my broken TV) sent her old TV home. She preferred to buy a new, slimmer TV to fit in with the small space of her apartment. So, I got the family 21" TV to replace my old one, while the 32" flat-screen TV from my sister is being put in the living room.

Until now, I still rarely turn on the 21" TV. But every time I sit on my bed and look at the TV just across my bed, I'm always amazed about how bigger it is....makes my bedroom feels so crowded....hihihi.... I plan to move the TV to the upstairs living room as soon as I could re-arrange the furniture there. That way, it won't be look that big and my Little One could watch TV without messing up my bedroom....:P...

Gasses in My Stomach

During the last two months, I'd been twice struck by gastritis. The first one was on December, I kind of expected it, because I was just under a long stress.....four months of working alone on 4 different projects with a tight deadline each. Nevertheless, I was also a little surprised when it attacked me. All of my works were already behind me for a week, so I was just enjoying lazy moments at work.There was no usual signs of discomfort like before. I still ate normally, till suddenly I got a stomachache on Sunday night, just before I planned to go to bed. In the end, I was unable to sleep at all and couldn't report to work on Monday morning. Made quite a havoc at the office, too....hihihi....since my boss had received an invitation for a follow-up meeting with a client....hehehe...

The recovery took a long time. I think mostly because I pushed myself back to work the very next day. Plus, there were several new customers for my laundry business. It means I couldn't have enough rest as much as my body need it. At least, two times a week I have a very looooong day, start at 5am and won't end before 10pm. Sometimes, the moment I reach home from work, I will depart again to deliver the laundries. No time to rest, not even for a little snack. And that's when the second struck came by.....

Last month, I was down again from gastritis. Thankfully, this time it attacked on Saturday. Of course, it means I spent the weekend feeling sick....hihihi...so much waste....hihihi.. It was almost three weeks ago, and  I still feel not 100% recovered till now. At the positive side, the last two months I had lost weight more than a year cycling....hahahaha...

Twice got sick by the same illness alerted me. Something needed to change, because I had no time to get sick. Now, I always make sure that there's some snacks ready in the car during the delivery day, so I won't get suffered from having late dinner or none at all. I'm also supported by some antacid pills for a while. I hope those two will help to keep the gasses in my stomach happy and calm down....:)

Review on 2012 (Part 3): Starting My Own Business

After did a thorough discussion with Mom and my sister, finally in the middle of year 2012 Mom and I braved ourselves to open a laundry. Well, actually it was I who needed to be brave...hehehe... 

It was a good friend of mine who moved into an apartment nearby which gave a big push to my decision. And of course the stars supported it....hihihi... They said that 2012 was a good time for my kind to open a business and it would be better something that related to water....THERE!!!...hihihi... Somehow, I felt that God had heard my plea and answered non-directly of course...(typical...hihihi...)

So, for almost six months now, I pick-up and deliver laundry to the apartment twice a week in the evenings. It's still quite overwhelming and need a hard discipline to pump up my energy till late nights.

At first, I thought that I had to get at least 30 customers before I resigned from my present job and fully involved into this laundry business. Because till now, it's still my Mom who does most of the jobs, like pre-washing, operating the washing machine, and supervising the ironing. I needed 30 customers to balance with my present salary.

But after three months doing the business, I could see that 30 customers is too high to achieve in a year....since I hope that I will be able to resign at least at the end of 2013.... Also, I could see that even having three regular customers at the time, sometimes the job was quite overwhelming. Several times, I had to help ironing the clothes after I was home from my regular job. So, I recalculated and decided that if God is willing to entrust me with 10 regular customers, then I'll hand in my resignation.

At the moment, my laundry business have 4 regular customers, and in the past two weeks we just got 2 new customers. Already SIX customers!!! I'm so ecstaticII! I really hope that my birthday wish will become true on 2013: to be financially independent....so help me, God....!