Round 2 with Dengue Fever
My second bout with Dengue Fever (pronounced DEN-GAY, or DEN-GEE)
In 2018, I nearly died from complications with Dengue Fever. I was hospitalized for 19 days, and it was the first and only time in my life that I verbalized I was ready to be home with the Lord.
Dengue Fever is an acute viral illness transmitted by a mosquito bite.
There are about 390 million cases of Dengue Fever a year and about 500,000 hospitalizations. It is fatal about 2.5% of the time.
Dengue Fever, also known as bone break fever, is first a fever, like dancing in the Sahara Desert under a magnifying glass kind of heat. Headaches usually accompany the fever. These headaches are like if all the bagpipe players in the world could attach their instruments to your eardrums and play for as long and as loud as possible while dancing with golf shoes on your eyeballs and all of the self-driving vehicles simultaneously running over your body back and forth. Meanwhile, you will have a rash, nausea and vomiting, and blood coming from different places.
Getting Dengue the second time was better but worse
This last time, I was only at the hospital for three days. I only had fatigue, headaches, nausea, and a moderate fever for a few weeks.
I learned the more times you contract Dengue, the more dangerous or fatal it can be.
There are four strains of Dengue - DENV1, DENV2, DENV3, and DENV4. The first infection provides lifelong immunity to one of the strains. However, if you contract another strain, because the antibodies don't offer complete protection for the other strain, sometimes they can actually bind to the new virus, making it easier for the virus to enter and infect certain immune cells in the body.
Sometimes, this second or third strain can cause the immune system to go into overdrive, potentially leading to plasma leakage or organ damage.
In my case, it has severely affected my liver.
Please keep this in prayer.