life with the chik

byJblake

100 followers

Updated 10 years ago

Living in the Caribbean is a life many people wish they enjoyed permanently, I love it. I love warm sunny mornings in winter with mangoes and cashew blossoms abuzz with bees high up the trees. Vibrant Poinsettias and radiant Bougainvilleas awash with colors of summer bathed in rain that comes down in torrents, it makes the land seem white. I love the excitement of summer with the buzz of a new hurricane threat, that promises some rain at least and a break in the torrid heat that beats the island into submission. Yes, it is good to live here in times good and bad but the bad times can be a real drag.

This year there was no serious threat of a major hurricane or storm so the rains did not come as it did not come last year. What little we got was not enough to sate the thirsty drought wrought land and replenish the rivers that irrigate our farms or the dams that provide potable water. Yet it was enough to bring on the mosquitoes and all they had to offer. Enter the CHIKUNGUNYA virus.

Over the years we have had Dengue outbreaks and this gives a fever that sucks a body dry, but we have learnt to respond to the Dengue, so we hit it hard on the onset and set it on its way. Now this one we call the CHIK V, that is another story. We have no answer to this one. None that I have heard of and no way to avoid it either.

It hits the head and joints with excruciating pain, pain like I can only liken to getting burned with fire. It hurts in places I did not remember existed on my body, til then. I spent days feverish and wet with sweat, nights shivering, wrapped from head to toe to be warm, unable to walk on swollen ankles without groaning in pain. Days on water, not able to eat anything that was not fluid, so weak, so utterly defenseless, a community under siege. Knowing the threat, but unable to put up a defense.

Four days later, I ate something solid for the first time and felt like I had just won the lotto, things would only get better from here on and I was ok with that. Small steps; big strides. I still had to do the bed sometimes because of the pain and weakness in the back, but no problem. I am getting it back together a day at a time.

So now I am a Chik v story, I will never get this again, never; they say and I would not wish this on anyone. So here comes a mosquito, is it singing; what, is that 'O Happy Day?' I gave it one clap and sent it to kingdom come. Must have been in the bar across the street. That one will never give someone this virus and I hope I get to do the same for all its descendants.

Have a great day my friends, it is so good to be painless again!