Hot Haze

For the past 5 Fridays in a row - one of our kids has been sick. Enoch, Asha, Enoch, Enoch and Asha. Interestingly enough we have a Bible study on Friday nights - something that the kids look forward to attending.

This weekend Asha started with a fever. She had it all through our JSK Next Steps Review. While we were planning for in-patient care, we had a sick little one at home. Mercifully we are just next door to our work, so we were able to shift some of the meetings to our home.

Just as Asha's fever began subsiding, Enoch woke up with a fever on Sunday morning. We were due to speak at the Living Waters Community Church in Mulund and have lunch at Peter and Daisy Chettiar's home afterwards. A quick call at 7 AM told Peter that we would not be able to come as a family. Yours truly had to go alone to the fellowship and share. It was a grace-filled time, though hard for me since I knew that Sheba and the kids were at home.

On Monday it was my turn. By the end of the day I was feeling distinctly hot and feverish. The toll of the past few days of planning and the run up to it had taken their pound of flesh. The thermometer confirmed that my good old body was cooking at 100 degrees Farenheit (we are metric in everything other than fever temperatures).

Tuesday was spent working from home. I had to get out a draft of the report on the consultation. Somehow I typed away, increasingly losing focus. The hot haze that a low-grade fever is crowding in on my attention. Nothing earth-shattering, but at the same time disorientatingly unsettling. The slight headache being accompanied by the odd twinges of minor pains across the body, the general feeling of tired giddiness and a nausea that has sent the odd probing finger in. At the end of the day I gave in and sent off what I had - half baked and half done to our collaborators - the product mirroring my mental state.

The next day was a combination of drifting in and out of awakeness. More headache. Much love and concern by Sheba and our two able junior nurses Asha and Enoch. Trying to put a happy smile on things. Frustrated to be in bed. Grateful, ever-so-grateful though for love recieved, prayers offered, the opportunity for rest. Last year we had attended a seminar where Stanley Nelson said: "if you don't take a holiday, God will force you to have one - in a hospital bed.' The truth of that - and the luxury of being looked after by my amazing wife - was very real to me.

As I write this I have been afebrile now for half a day.

What a luxury to be well.

Yesterday's newspaper headlines blared news of the first known H1N1 ("Swine-Flu") death in India.

It was a young girl in Pune. No known contact with anyone who had been abroad. Possibly picked up from a clinic she had gone to for primary treatment for her cough/cold. Over the last month we have had multiple exposures to folks from abroad. At least 7 people in direct contact. If we look into second-degree contacts it would skyrocket.

Having said that everyday with health is a blessing. Though not as deadly as many flu varieties, H1N1 has been spreading so rapidly around the world that the UK govt. has basically admitted that it cannot contain it anymore - and will now merely try to treat new cases. The WHO says that H1N1 is 'unstoppable.' With a case fatality rate of 0.45% it means that 45 out of every 10,000 infected will die. That is still serious, but nothing like the influenza outbreaks of the past such as the 1918 'Spanish flu' outbreak which may have killed between 50-100 million people.

An then there are our dear friends with impaired immunities. In the run-up to helping us decide about the next steps for Jeevan Sahara Kendra, we did a survey where we asked our HIV positive friends about their health in the previous month and previous 3 years.

The figures are sobering. Though a majority of our friends are now taking Anti-Retroviral Therapy, we are still dealing with a group of people who are very sick.

A full 1/3 reported having a fever in the last month. One in three of our friends went through what I did, and that too just in the last month. And the month before? Another 1 in 3. And before that? It is most likely, that another 1 in 3 will have experienced a fever.

We asked about 'long-term' illnesses. 42% of our Positive Friends reported having fever episodes for over a month in the last 3 years. I was febrile for just over 2 days and feel drained. I cannot even imagine a month of fever. And yet that is the reality of what a person with HIV is going through.

Fever is a warning sign. A picture of what goes on within.

As I rejoin work tomorrow I do so with a renewed determination to live out my life for the purpose God has called me to. This small exposure I have had to fever in the family and in me is a reminder of the hidden epidemic we are working with - a secret depletion of immunity from the disease that dare not speak its name.

Statistics only mean something when they bite. I am thankful for this small slice of reality that I have experienced. The hot haze was in no way pleasant, but then far far lighter than so much of what the average HIV positive friend of ours goes through.

Onward.