9 things my girlfriend said while in the grips of dengue fever

It only takes one of the buggers.

My girlfriend fell ill with dengue fever in Cambodia, although given the incubation period it was likely contracted in Vietnam. She was in hospital for over a week.

1. “Am I going to die?”
2. “It feels like someone’s taken a baseball bat to my spine.”
3. “What’s happening in my shoulder?”
4. “It’s in my bones. It’s in my hips. It’s in my knees. How did it get in my knees?”
5. “I can’t eat. I can’t not eat. I’m hot. I’m cold. I’ terrified of eating.”
6. “It feels like my skin’s going to fall off.”
7. “It just feels like I’m never going to get better.”
8. “I just feel void.”
9. “The only thing I want to eat in the whole world is a Marks & Spencer cheese and tomato roll. When we get back to London, there’s that M&S at Heathrow arrivals. I don’t care what anyone thinks, I’m just going to go straight there and buy one. I’m going to sit down right there in the airport and eat it. Then I’m going to get another one.”

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