Sleepless

It's coming to 5 am in the morning & is my last night for the week. Although I can sleep during the night provided nobody came to the clinic, I haven't been sleeping well. On my 1st night on Sunday, a student rang the doorbell at 12.30 am to take his own medicine. (It's a policy that they can't bring the medicine back to the boarding house & they have to come to the clinic to take the medicine.) I had just fallen asleep after tossing & turning since 11 pm. After that, I couldn't fall back asleep. Just as I was feeling drowsy & on the verge of falling asleep, the doorbell rang again at 3 am. 3 students begged me to let them watch the world cup coz the TV in the boarding house is spoilt. They left at 5 am & finally I could sleep.

The same thing happened for the next 2 nights but on different timings. Tonight, I had 2 students resting in the clinic. 1 of them is having fever. Temperature taking is 4 hourly. The last reading for the day is 12mn. Though it's not required that I take in the middle of the night, his temperature is 38.4C at 12mn. I always recheck between 3 to 4 am becoz who knows what will happen if I wait till 7 am? They would have thrown a febrile seizure if left unchecked. True enough, his temperature at 3.30 am was 39.0C. I gave him another 2 panadol, last taken just before 9 pm.

These students seem to have developed a resistance to panadol. It just doesn't work anymore. I remember just 1 or 2 mths back, a student had a similar illness - flu, cough, etc. But his temperature remained high even with 2 tabs of panadol taken 6 hourly. He went to his own GP & was given voltaren which is considered quite a strong drug. It effectively kept his temperature down. Now this new boy's temperature has never gone below 38.0C the whole day despite taking his panadol strictly. I wonder what's making them so sick.

I reached the clinic at 7 pm. & becoz lately there've been lots of dead wasps in the morning by the time I open up at 7 am, I have this habit of looking up at the ceiling. The pest busters had just removed a nest from the ceiling right outside the clinic 2 weeks ago. But there wasn't anything. 9.30 pm, a teacher came in & told me that there were lots of wasps outside the clinic. I went to look. True enough! After he left, I took the insecticide & began spraying. I managed to kill most of them. They took a long time to die, buzzing around on the floor. The bbbzzzz bbbzzzz sound the wings made made my hair stand on end. Literally! I had goosebumps on my arms & I quickly retreated back into the clinic & locked the door.

I slept from 1 to 3 am just now. But after checking on the boy, I find myself unable to sleep. Partly becoz I'm so hungry... I guess it's also becoz I took a nap of 6 hours in the day time. I just couldn't help myself. I fell asleep at 10 am & I briefly recalled someone trying to wake me up but I just couldn't open my eyes. Finally I managed to drag myself out of bed at 4 pm & that's only becoz I have to cook for Ton Ton & I need to leave my house by 6 pm to come to work. My mom told me that the whole time I was sleeping, Ton Ton laid down right outside my room against the door & refused to budge.

I'll be going on leave for the whole of summer holidays starting from next Monday to mid Aug. I suspect that I'll be bored to death at home. So I'm planning to head down to the CC & see if they have any courses that I can join. I'm thinking of cycling down since it's so near but the tires are flat from lack of use & I really hate pumping tires... I'm gonna go lie down for a while till it's time to open up the clinic. Hopefully I'm able to sleep this time round.