High fever that wouldn't go away

Approximately one and a half months ago, Brendan had to missed school for 3 days as he had extremely high fever at 39.9 degrees. We took him to see the dr who said that he didn't require any antibiotics and the fever should subside after a few days. We were given paracetamol which unfortunately didn't help very much.

The fever did go down for just a little while but would go up quickly again especially at night. Brendan was extremely weak and his body was extremely hot. He didn't have an appetite for days. He couldn't even finish a cup of water. I had to keep reminding him to drink sips and sips of water every now and then.

I wanted to try the egg white and flour rub down but decided to send him to see a lady who specialised in 猪毛 丹  (“zhu mao tan” or also known as Chinese typhoid fever or demam kepialu in malay) in Seri Kembangan on the 4th day, upon recommendation by a friend.

She did a quick check on Brendan and asked him to lie down while she rub a watery mixture in red on his chest. Within seconds, there were tiny little hair on his chest. She proceeded to pass us a few packets of some powdery medicine to be taken every 4 hours for the next 2 days plus a packet of clear water. It was all done in a jiffy. There were no description of the herbs or the water which I later found out to be some sort of cooling water.  She didn't even confirmed it to be 猪毛 丹. So, to this date, I'm still not sure whether it was 猪毛 丹 or "atapchee" fever.

This traditional chinese remedy believes that the appearance of the harsh looking hair on the body is the relieving of body heat. If not treated, it can lead to death.

She passed us a small piece of paper which states "Diet: rice, egg, apple, sweet potato, pork, chicken, fish. No Bath for 2 days. Diet for 4 days". I thought that was the diet Brendan was supposed to be taking until my friend who recommended me this lady said that those are the food to avoid.

His fever did subsided 2 days after that lady's treatment. It was a big scare for us as his fever was so high and he couldn't even walk.

Over the CNY holidays, I had the privilege to consult a very experienced sifu in treating 猪毛 丹, shingles, snakebites and centipede bites. He taught us how to identify whether it is  猪毛 丹and how to treat it.

Here's the video taken. Hopefully this helps anyone who is looking for any sort of info on this. Kindly excuse our bad Chinese in the video.

Contact of Sifu Tan :

Tan Eng Huat
013-7046165 (updated : 011-1077 6165)

21, Jalan Muhibbah, 

Taman Kerjasama, 

86000 Kluang, Johor.
              

Disappearing act. Peeling garlic act.

Yeap, I've disappeared for a while. I've kind of migrated to FB for most of my updates where I can limit my posts to selected group of friends. Over the Chinese New Year break, I met a friend who asked why I stopped "writing".

To begin with, I don't write. The few "writing" episodes in the newspaper many years ago was by chance. It was just articles I submitted just for the fun of it. I don't have the intention to keep on blogging. It started basically as my personal mission to keep memories in writing where I can reflect back on the things that have happened, to give memories to my children on a (not-so-private) journal in my journey on motherhood and my personal rants in life. 

Concentrating hard to peel garlic

I showed my children, who can now read, this blog, and they kind of enjoyed reading some of the 'stories'. This has also prompted them to write their own diary everyday. As Brendan says, "I also want to keep track of the things I do so that when I am big one day, I can look back at what I did as a child".

Ok, children, you will know some personal stories which I keep in a private journal. You can also continue coming back in here anytime to read my journey, and your baby/childhood stories which will be kept in limited updates. 

My lovely children, found it entertaining to read interesting stories of themselves as babies. 

Anyway, Brendan caught me by surprised when he suddenly sat down at the kitchen table last week to help me peel garlics. Lots and lots of it. Motherhood does springs its surprises at times. After half an hour, he decided to call it quits, finding it too tiring to continue any further. He says, "This is hard work."