Aftermath of Camp Insinyur

In a blink of an eye, the end of the month has once again arrived! Time seriously flies, way too quickly! So soon, and we will be entering the eighth month of this year! OMG! This is just too fast for me to comprehend! Ahh!

Anyway, it has been a week since camp Insinyur has ended, and sad to say, it did not end ideally for me. I would say it's quite a fun camp, but a great pity that I did not get to enjoy the camp in its entirety. This was because I fell horrendously sick! Hai. It was only the first day of camp and I began to develop a cough. The cough then got worse through the second day, and soon after, I was not feeling myself anymore. Having a body temperature check every once in a while as a precaution to H1N1, my temperature hit the alarming point of 37.5 in the afternoon! And then, even though profusely drinking loads of water, I only managed to bring down the temperature by 0.1 degree! During initiation night, I could feel that my temperature was climbing, as I was starting to feel giddy and bodily aches began to settle in. Before sleeping, I declared to my GL that I was not feeling well, (like a baby boy! lol) and she requested I take my temperature again. The thermometer registered an unfriendly reading of 37.8, which prompted my GL to provide me with Panadol and as much rest as I could get. Hence the priority to let me bathe first (I was extremely dirty, with honey, curry sauce, flour etc. scattered all over my body. It's initiation night afterall!) as the queue was extremely long! GLs rock man, a very welfare bunch I must say! :)

I was not the only one who fell sick on that day! Another OG mate of mine had a fever too. Unfortunately for him, he was still having a temperature the next morning, and hence he had to fall out from the camp, return home and seek medical attention. It resulted in my OG to be left with only 6 guys. We were suppose to have 9, but 1 was already sick even before the camp had started, and so did not appear at all. Another had got work commitments to fulfill, hence left on the second day of camp and never returned. As for me, I felt so much better the next day. With some proper rest and help from Panadol, my temperature dropped to just 36.7! I thought I must be fine then. Yet how wrong I was. On the way to Sentosa from the Girl Guides camp, the giddiness and bodily aches began to settle in once again! I could sense that my fever was coming back, but I chose to persevere as I did not want to fall out and have only 5 guys remaining in the OG! Yet as the day dragged on, I felt much worse! I had to use 'mind over body' most of the time to get through the games. I was pushing myself far beyond what my body could handle, and there were moments when I was beginning to see patches of black and gray. It was just bad, I was not enjoying at all. I managed to pull through till lunch time, when we had another round of temperature check. It was only then that I realised I had pushed myself too far, as my thermometer registered a nasty 39.0 degrees! Yida was very shocked when he saw my temperature, and immediately tried to cool me down with a wet towel. Other main programmers of the camp were notified as well, and soon enough a small group had formed around me, pouring care and concern, while mostly convincing me to go home and rest. What they said made sense to me too, that I would not have been able to enjoy the camp while suffering from an illness. Hence, I heeded their advice, packed my stuff, and headed straight to the doctor.

The doctor diagnosed my illness to be the common flu. He advised me to consume the medication prescribed on time, as well as drink lots of water and have lots of rest. And so, for the next 48 hours, I was basically at home nursing my illness. The fever was really bad, as the temperature hovered around 39 degrees most of the time in the first 24 hours. It even peaked at 39.7 degrees at one point in time! I tried taking long cold showers, and sleeping in an air-conditioned room, but my temperature just did not seem to be dropping. Furthermore, despite taking paracetamol every 4 hours, my temperature still remained high! My parents got really worried, and thinking that I might have contracted the H1N1 virus, advised me to go straight to the hospital for a further check up. Yet I chose to just wait it out, believing that I will get better with time! Thankfully, it sure did, as I finally felt signs of improvement on Wednesday night. My temperature for once dropped to a 37.8 low! The bodily aches were also starting to disappear. Thursday came and my fever was finally gone! I felt so much better that I decided to return back to the camp, especially since it was SP night on Thursday! Haha.

Well, it was only when returning back to the camp that I realised many more of my OG mates had fallen ill. Even the GLs were not spared, as two out of the four of them got so sick that they went home to rest. Oh wells. Anyway, I must say this SP idea is quite interesting. My SP turned out to be the one who will be studying the same course as me! We had Sakae Sushi for dinner, and then headed down to NTU alumni club at Buona Vista for SP night! Unfortunately, during the function, the test results for H1N1 for the first guy in my OG that went home was released, saying that he had tested positive for the virus. Hence, in consideration of not spreading the virus to the entire camp, we decided to leave the function early. My OG got the very first bus back to the chalet at Pasir Ris, where most that were feeling unwell, got their belongings and headed home. As for me, feeling much better, and not wanting to miss out on the last moments of the camp, I decided to stay behind! In the end, out of 18 members, only 4 were left! It was kind of pathetic, but nonetheless, the 4 of us were in high spirits as we joined the rest in breaking camp!

Well, this camp sure was quite an eventful one, in a most unfortunate manner! Had none of us fell sick, this camp could have been more enjoyable for me and the rest of my OG mates. Nonetheless, I must say that this illness had bonded us quite strongly, and I am glad to have made such great friends in this OG. Oh wells. August comes, and 11 days later, school will finally start! After breaking from studies for like 2.6 years, I hope my brain has not rusted too much, and will function proper when the time calls for it to! Haha. Alright! Till then.


Oh as for the H1N1 situation, I went to see my doctor for a second time, as my cough was not improving. It was also during the second visit that my doctor decided to let me test for the virus. The results turned out to be negative! So I must have contracted the common flu! Phew! Lucky me I must say! Haha.