Sick at the end of 2010

December 2010 was probably the worst month for me in 2010. It probably started with this wound I got in both of my leg... about 20 cm below the knee. If they were normal wound than it wouldn't matter that much. Problem was, it won't heal. It had stayed for about a month, so I decided to see a doctor.

Several days before seeing the doctor, somehow there were red dots on my thigh, and they were so itchy they woke me up at night. Not sure how they started to appear though... But I ended up mentioning this to the doctor... and that's when it all begins..

Forget about the wound that won't heal... because about 2 days after putting fatty ointment that this doctor gave me, it healed nicely. About those red dots, after taking a good look at them, (he even used a magnifying glass) he diagnosed it as wart. So he prescribed me with an ointment to kill wart, and I immediately put it after I got home.

The day after consulting with him, I went fishing with my uncle, and got a pretty bad sunburn. Well what do you expect, I've never went to the beach and do this sunbathe thing, so I guess I was doing it wrong. That afternoon I started to feel pain in my skin that got burnt... The area that got burnt badly was half of my thigh (I wore shorts), and below the knee.

The next day I couldn't get up from bed. Whenever I move my leg, it felt like the flesh was stretched badly. But yeah, gotta do what you gotta do everyday... moving from one room to another doing things... eating, taking shower, etc. I put sorbolene cream that supposedly moisturizes your skin. I was also still applying that wart killing ointment to the red dots... however I started to notice that they got reddened and bigger than before.

From what I've read on the information thingy, that wart ointment should make the skin somewhat more tender? so that the ointment can enter and kill the wart. So I thought... it'll be okay in maximum a week time. Thankfully the sunburn got much better after several days. No more stinging feeling whenever I stand/move my leg. However, the dots on my thigh were getting worse.

After a week, those red dots have transformed into rash, the itchiness was not decreasing, and the rash was getting wet... clear yellow liquid were coming out of it. So I thought it's time to see another doctor.

The trip to the doctor's place was not a pleasant one. Why? Because even wearing shorts make the rash burst, all those liquids stained in my shorts, and it was so painful. It felt like you got a wound, and you scratched it repeatedly with a cloth.

I like this doctor though, he was caring and seems to be more knowledgeable. He's still relatively young. Anyway, he thought that it was not wart, but skin infection on the hair follicle. So he gave me antibiotics to kill the bacteria, and he told me to get Telfast to relieve the itch and Solugel to keep the wound/rash clean.

So I went home, feeling a little bit happy and hopeful, even though the trip back home was as painful. I dropped by a chemist and bought the medicines on the way home. I remembered the doctor said that I can repeat the antibiotics once, if the rash hasn't cleared yet after 5 days.

So those days went by, without any sign of recovery. The rash transformed into what the doctor later called as crusty(?)... so the skin appeared like dry wound on the outside, but inside it's wet. It looked so disgusting, and it covered most of my thigh. The itchiness getting worse every night, every shower was so painful. I've never felt like this before.

5 days had gone by, and I decided to get another antibiotics, still hoping that I can get even a little better. However, my mom told me that I used to be resistant to some antibiotics when I was a child... which I think is a misconception now. It's the bacteria that got resistant, not my body. Anyway, I decided to visit the doctor again, telling him about my supposedly antibiotics resistant body, hoping that he changed the antibiotics to the one I can take.

It was a week since my last visit. It was Wednesday. I think the doctor was there only every Wed? Not sure... Anyway the doctor gave me the antibiotics that I asked for, it was flucloxacillin. He took a sample of the liquid coming out of the rash too, to check what bacteria was there, so that he can target the medication better.

So I went home again, feeling hopeful that this time it will go away. The bacteria was called Staph. You can Google it, the full name was too complicated to remember. After what seemed to be forever (6 days), I finished the antibiotics. No sign of recovery. I noticed the rash got warm at times, and new dots appeared after I took this new antibiotics. Itchiness got worse, pain increasing, my patience got tested? Everything was just so dark and gloom.

I made mom and dad worried back home, I think they can feel my pain. I wasn't able to sleep every night, because of the itch. The liquid coming out of it started to smell bad, even those liquids coming out of my face and scalp too. My bed cover was stained with those liquids and some blood. It was just awful and disgusting. I was just so sad and frustrated, wondering what went wrong that I ended up feeling this unpleasant thing.

I started considering going back home to Indo, so that my mom and dad can take care of me and help me recover. However at that time, there was still hope, because I haven't checked what's the lab result. So the next Wednesday I see the doctor once again, complaining that things weren't going well and everything was so painful. The doctor immediately booked me an appointment with a dermatologist (at last!). The lab result ended up with no bacteria found. Only dead white blood cell. The dermatologist was available on that Friday, so I still need to wait for 2 more days.

Thursday night, me and my parents decided to send me back home on the next available flight. Thanks to my cousin in law, she booked me a flight on Saturday, direct to Jakarta. I can still see the doctor on Friday, and thanks to my friend Yusac, he took me to the dermatologist that day.

The dermatologist was a bit quiet, but he knew what he's doing. I wasn't so sure about him, until I feel my body's getting better. He said I got allergic reaction plus secondary bacterial infection. He gave me betamethasone cream, prednisolone (oral), and some antibiotics. He told me to soak off those yellowish liquid that came out of every rash every 2-3 hours, than put the ointment three times a day.

As soon as I got home, I soaked off those crusty thingy, and put the cream. Those yellowish liquid just oozed off my skin, like it was squeezed from my skin. It was scary, I didn't expect to see this. I was afraid that somehow I'm allergic to it or something... but I ended up soaking off every 2 hours for three times. It was not a nice experience, the liquid smelled really bad, it was sticky, but I endured it all and got a pretty good night sleep.

The next day I was going back to Indo, and I need to be ready at 7.30am. My skin already felt better, I can wear skirt without much pain. I enjoyed the airport and the flight. It was expensive, so I thought I'll enjoy it the best I can. Haha..

Well the conclusion is that the dermatologist gave me the right medicines, and I've consulted with the dermatologist in Indo too. My skin got much better, it is dry now and the itch has decreased to the minimum. I just need to wait for the red areas of the skin to heal, which I don't really mind because it's nothing compared to what it was a week ago.

Global Test Market

Exams over yeayyy ;) Last exam was on Thursday the 25th. Results gonna be out on 11th Dec. Can't wait to see how it all turned out.

Now I'm not sure about what to do for this holiday, aside from working...

Well anyway, since I was here (Australia), I started doing surveys from this one website when I got the time. It is a paid online survey website. So whenever you finish a survey, you'll get some points. Once you collect 1000 points, you can cash it out for USD 50. Nice, eh?

Here's the website btw, GlobalTestMarket.

However, you can get screened out at a survey. Probably because you didn't match the survey's targeted audience. But every time you screened out, you'll get sweepstakes points. Then you can participate in the daily, monthly, or quarterly sweepstakes. I haven't collected 1000 points though, but luckily I won the daily sweepstakes xD

Well at first I'm not sure if I got scammed or not, because as you've probably known already, the Internet's full of scamming site. But I can assure you that this one website is not a scam. I've just got my cheque mailed this week, yay ;)

It's not bad thing if you like doing surveys at your spare time. You can get paid and participate in the sweepstakes too! Not sure if any country can participate though, you can try it out yourself if you're interested :p

Btw I'm still playing MapleStory, my main character just hit level 100!
For you that doesn't know what MapleStory is, it's a MMORPG 2D, cute characters ;)
Here's MapleStory's Website if you're interested.
There's a big patch coming, they call it the "Big Bang". They're gonna change a whole lots of things, including the maps, game resolution, monster levels, and many more! Looking forward to it!

That's all I think. I guess I'll cya all later at my next post then! ;)

2 Exams Done, 1 To Go :p

So... apparently I didn't put any other post after that first mind maps haha... Well actually I finished studying that subject, and I can say that I'm pretty confident that I'll get an okay result, or more :p

Second exam went not as successful as the first one. Probably because the time for studying was not as much as the first exam. I got 3 days to study, and there were work commitment for each of those days. Even though only 3 hours each day, but I need to spend 1 hour for going there and back, and about 1/2 hour of preparing to go there (bath, etc.). But yeah, I can say that I definitely pass (if my calculation is correct), but not sure about the score... haha...

Now I got more time for preparing the last exam. More than a week. But to be honest I haven't started anything yet. I kinda already studied before for the MCQ test though... so it shouldn't be as hard as the second exam. Better start studying though Dx

Well at my last post I wrote about Aussie exams vs what I've experienced back home... I can say that the format of exam is different. Here I got MCQ, short answer and long answer questions. Back home, it really depends on the lecturer. I might get long answer questions only, or a mix of them. The difficulty was pretty much the same. But here I'm not as lazy as I was... so I can say that I understand things better here. At Indo, you would always find yourself too lazy to study. Probably because of the environment really supports that :( Your friends are as lazy as you, more or less. Actually if you want advice, it is better to befriend those that are not as lazy as you, so you can get a little motivation from them.

Well I guess that's all for today. All the best for your exams/your other problems to those who read this! ^^