The last five weeks have been pretty eventful for us.  Of course it was the holy month of Ramzan and Eid was coming up.  This year the month of fasting kicked off pretty well with prayers and good thoughts. We finally came up with the idea of renting a new apartment and started the search for a better place. It was the 10th day of fasting, a Friday, that I was down with fever and body pain. Little did we know that a whole month of bed rest and hospital visits was awaiting us from then!  On Saturday we decided that I would skip fast so as to regain my health .. and then by night; the first visible sign of chickenpox showed up! A red blister on my hand! I was almost  certain that it was chickenpox at that time, however my very optimistic husband said …”Noo… It can’t be that! Let’s wait for another day”.

When chicken pox strikes!

Sunday evening we went to the hospital , by this time around 3-4 blisters and rashes had come up.  It was only when the doctor wrote ‘chicken pox’ under diagnosis that my husband was convinced of my disease. The worst part for us was not me being bedridden, it was the fact my he had not yet had the disease.The doctor was like 90% certain that he would catch it too given the fact that we are living together and sharing the same bed. Once it was confirmed I had chicken pox we called our families and broke the news. And with that started the countless number of beliefs/ chicken pox myths and advices! Some of it being if blisters started showing on Friday , it would continue till Tuesday, Skip non veg and spicy food, do not bath until completely healed and so on . Another one was not to worry as chicken pox is considered to be a blessing from God. Not to take any medication apart from rubbing the blisters with neem leaves was another one. [ Surprisingly some of these came out to be true though!]  One of  the comforting myths was that my hubby would be getting it only after I took the “long” bath post healing and finally be healthy again. Now that’s a good thought! at least both us would not be bedridden at the same time..

My husband ” the believer of Science” did not believe in any of this at the time and took to cleaning me with Dettol! Not just me but the house, the clothes everything.. Within a week one bottle of Dettol was emptied. And at night he took to dabbing my body with Lacto Calamine which he did with such dedication that by the time it was over I was completely covered in Lacto calamine. At night as a precaution to avoid him getting the disease we made a pillow bridge between us!

The best medicine be Dettol! [PS: This is not a paid advertisement]

Three – four days went thus , when one day we decided to give the neem leaf a try. By this time  there were many rashes with luckily none popping up on my face. Even then my biggest worry was whether my face would be filled with blisters. I looked sick by then, tired and blisters everywhere and when I saw him flaunting his all clear body in front of the mirror , I must say I got jealous :P.  Our relatives had told us that neem trees are seen in our neighbourhood so one day my hubby went in search of those. And of course for us ‘search’ started with ‘Google’. So he googled the images , and finally concluded upon the right leaf to pick.

Google knows everything!

After 13 days I was completely healed and I took my ‘long chicken pox free’ bath on the 13th day, a Wednesday. There were not any permanent scars and I was happy to be healthy again. So far my husband had shown no signs of fever . Even though each day we did run a full body scan for blisters on him . After waiting for two-three days  we decided that the virus had shown mercy to him. The next day we went Eid shopping took a visit to Ikea , in order to proceed with our room shifting.

Out after two weeks

Exactly the next day, Friday , 15 days after me catching fever he was down. Alas the virus had not shown mercy to him after all. We were sure it was chickenpox but waited for the rashes to pop out before going to the doctor. By evening 2 rashes had come and we set out . However the Doctor was not convinced with 2 rashes and asked us to visit again the next day. And then the wait began. Next day some more had come up and we set out again , eager to start with the medication.

Waiting for it all to pop out

At the clinic we showed the doctor all his rashes and a surprised doctor replied ” Well! I must say never in my career have I seen someone so happy to get chicken pox!!”. On the way home my Dettol obsessed hubby bought a new bottle of Dettol, a dettol hand sanitizer and a new bottle of Lacto calamine. .Back home we started the drill again, informed families took in all the advices, informed his boss, who immediately sanctioned his sick leave. The next week was tiresome with him down with high fever and shivering but even then not forgetting to dip himself in Dettol! He was also not satisfied with my application of the Lacto Calamine and took the task to himself. We were used to the whole thing now and waited for each stage to get over with. By then the World Cup had begun and it was only days before Eid. It was our first eid together since wedding and we were sad not being able to celebrate it. The worst part in this whole month was not being able to hug each other and by the 5th week I went behind him literally begging for a hug 🙂

Hug me pleeeeassseee

On the final day of Eid holidays he had regained enough health to drive and so we set out.. Our first proper outing after a month. We wore our new Eid clothes ,decided to take lot of lovely pictures to post in Instagram having not been able to post the mandatory Eid picture. However this didn’t work out since our bodies were still weak. I was too tired to pose and he was too tired to snap a picture. But we did get fresh air and that was what we wanted the most!  Having conquered chicken pox we are now waiting for the good times that they (our friends and families)  had promised after the disease since it is considered to be blessing from God!!  Until then Bye folks!

The mandatory Eid picture even though late

[Note to the readers: Pardon me for the poorly drawn comics.This was the best I could manage]

4 Comments

Anjana · June 20, 2018 at 5:12 pm

Super super super! So well potrayed, cracked me up at times ??

Merin.Nikitha Anil · June 20, 2018 at 5:16 pm

Journey of my life’… Yeah all your writings vividly reflects your life afii..these simple things in life are the most beautiful ones. And the way you depict them is really good.
“Can I have a hug”? …awww… The cuteness and the love in this.. is so much visible… The simplest and best moments in life!
And the best part about this one is your ability to convey the whole chicken pox story which we all find it as unpleasant, in a very funny way. The use of comic pictures worked well.. Go on afii… :* ..waiting to know more about your “simple yet beautiful journey of life”. ❤

Reenu · June 21, 2018 at 3:37 am

Afiii….super?Keep going dear

The story of a 'chickenpox' blessing. - JOURNEY OF MY LIFE... · July 10, 2018 at 5:19 am

[…] the good luck we were promised , since chicken pox is considered a blessing from God” (http://www.journeyofmylife.me/2018/06/20/eid-world-cup-and-chickenpox/). Anyways, we call them and inform that there is a good news. Some guessed I was pregnant ,some […]

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