You think that's bad

"I've seen this. I've done this. You don't want this."

-Zohan Dvir

In the U.S., the mildly obscure but extremely common sickness that most people can relate to would be chicken pox.

Everybody has an experience with those little red dots, unless you were born in the 90s and received the vaccine. Although most of us were too young to really remember our chicken pox, it is something that most of us have suffered through.

In my town, people don't get chicken pox.

Instead, the semi-obscure, fully miserable disease that nearly everyone can relate to is dengue fever. (After last week's bout ... "I can relate")

Now, I would only compare dengue fever to chicken box in its commonality — nothing else!

Dengue fever is a tropical, mosquito-transmitted illness that has also been referred to as Broken Back Disease. I don't really like that nomenclature because it puts too much emphasis on one symptom — you get the notion that a chiropractor could help you with dengue.

That name disrespects the disease and its other symptoms. And you don't want to disrespect dengue. It can hurt you a lot of ways.

• Pounding headaches
• Paralyzing back pains
• Rusty joints
• Really, really, really high fever
• Chills
• Fainting
• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Sore throat
• Rash

And this doesn't include the most irritating and often overlooked symptom: It makes everything you eat taste like chalk. And if something already tastes bad (like a rehydration solution), it will taste that much worse.

Oh, and there is no medicine that can cure dengue.

You can't do anything except take whatever punishment the disease decides to inflict upon you. And it lasts for at least a week — sometimes more.

So when you mention dengue to someone in town, they exhale and make a face that says "I feel really, really bad for that person. I know exactly what they are going through, and I do not envy them at all."

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Last Monday night, my body felt like it was about to break down. The back pains and aching legs were followed by sleeplessness, lightheadedness, and a low-grade fever. At one point, I woke up on my bathroom floor. The next day, I rested most of the day and the symptoms weren't that bad. I didn't really think this was some sort of tropical disease. I pinned it on a combination of exhaustion, malaria medicine, and not eating enough on Monday.

But then I had another miserable night: my back felt as if it had been run over by a tractor and I cycled between baking-like-a-toasted-cheeser and shivering.

The following day, I felt fresh (I have no idea how that could happen because I slept all of seven minutes the night before, but it did). Feeling fine and with a really low fever, I thought I could maybe get some work done.

Mistake.

If there is one thing you do not want to do when you have dengue is challenge dengue. Best advice: submission.

Luckily, I realized my mistake early on and went right back to bed. By the third day, the fever was still there. My friend, a recent dengue survivor, said that I should call the Peace Corps med staff and explain my symptoms. (For the record, on the second day of my symptoms, she was convinced I had dengue)

So I did that. And the blood test looked like a probable case of dengue.

Continue submission.

Now let me explain what I mean by submission. You lie down on your bed. You can't really move because it hurts. If you overcome the sore joints and the pain that it takes to move, you can't really stand up because you'll probably faint. And did I say you have to keep hydrating and nourishing yourself while thinking that any food that goes into your body has a very good chance leaving your body through that same orifice.

In fact, when the medical staff first explained dengue to us during training they said that for ten days you will feel like you want to die, except that you won't. Thanks for the reassurance.

My friend who recently got over the disease described it as "roadkill."

Both are very accurate.

Those are the fact. Do you want to know what it's like to feel like you want to die?

Well, it sucks. And time passes really slowly.

It really makes you appreciate how great it is to have your health. Unfortunately, we only realize this when we are put in such dreadful states. But let me tell you something: be thankful you haven't gone through dengue.

To pass the time, I arrived at a mental state in which I tried to separate my mental being from the physical being. That way, I didn't have to focus on the anguish my body was in. It worked pretty well.

The other thing that helped me pass the time was being delirious. I knew I was being delirious because I would think about things and then say to myself "Ian, you're not thinking clearly." I planned on writing a journal to keep track of my dengue delusions. Then it hurt too much to write, so I had to scrap those plans. I'm sorry you all missed out on Delirious Ian. He's pretty entertaining. And blame it on dengue that you don't have his ramblings.

So what does it take to get over dengue? I've boiled it down to two things: patience and acceptance.

You wake up in the morning and know that all day long you will be in pain. Then you try to sleep at night and are in pain again. Of course, you've also realized that you can't do anything to make it better or go faster.

But eventually, it gets better. One night, your fever feels like it can't get any higher. Then the next morning, you head to the doctor for a blood test and the fever goes away. Congratulations, you are over the hump.

My family likes to use a phrase to describe difficult situations, be it taking a shit in the woods, being stuck out in the wilderness, a tough project for school or work:

"It builds character." (Or for those who speak in Latin tongue "construir carácter")

It's difficult to measure how you have changed. All you know is that you are better prepared to face other situations.

Dengue is definitely a character-building episode — one that I hope you never get to experience.

And I'm doing everything I can to make sure I don't get it again. They say the second round of dengue is worse than the first.

Thank you very much to everybody who posted a comment on the previous post or passed his or her messages through my family. I have been bedridden for nearly a week, but my family read them to me over the phone. It means a lot to have that kind of support group helping me through this character-building experience.