During the 1-week school holiday in September, Wei caught chicken pox. The water-filled vesicles started on Wednesday and we thought nothing of it, and on Thursday morning it got worse. It turned out that he had a break-through infection despite being vaccinated as a baby.
In order to speed up his recovery, we took him to a doctor who prescribed an antiviral (acyclovir) and some calamine lotion for the each. But Wei was still suffering and I was frantic with getting him to recover quickly. And here I share what I did and Wei recovered by Tuesday (with all vesicles dried up).
1. Acyclovir - this must be started when the first vesicles appear, do not wait to see a doctor. Tablets, taken 5 times a day.
2. Calamine lotion - actually, quite useless but better than nothing
3. Buy KMnO4, potassium permanganate from pharmacy. Mix purple crystals in water and use a brush to brush on the vesicles. This is an antiseptic, which some people says will dry up the vesicles faster.
4. Young coconut water, drink as much as he wants. 2 coconuts a day should be enough. Buy local fresh coconut, not the processed ones from Thailand that are already cut and refrigerated because those may contain additives. Available usually at pasar malam.
5. If you believe in Chinese medicine, go to a Chinese medical hall and ask for chicken pox medicine. In my case, the taukeh prescribed 2 packs of "lin yung" to be taken over 2 days. Here you have to check if the herbs are of animal or plant origin.
6. Buy cheap tea-leaves (available at provision shops, lok-poh tea, RM6 per packet) and boil as bath water, to ease the itch.
During the entire episode, we quarantined Wei in his room, and used Dettol disinfectant spray on the door-knobs, table, chair etc etc. We also washed hands often to prevent spreading the virus to our other children. One good thing that came out of this was that Wei was very bored, and he started reading books.
Our Harry Potter series have been sitting on our bookshelves for a long, long time, and finally Wei picked up the first book to read. He finished the 2nd book, and then he couldn't continue. I had forgotten that somehow I missed buying the 3rd book.
So I hunt around for a bargain, and found somebody who wants to barter-trade it. Seller would not sell it and asked if I have any books for exchange. Wow, this was unusual.... Anyway, I did have some books which I didn't want to keep in my collection and listed them out, and thankfully, she wanted 1 of them. So voila! I got our book yesterday.
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| The book I got on barter trade |
So now, I told Wei I am reading this first, before he gets his hands on it. That's OK because he is reading The Hobbit.
It started with a cheap flight on Malindo air from Subang to Penang (RM59 one way), and then head straight to Armenian street where all the food and street arts are. Thereafter, it was Penang local food, ice-cream on a hot afternoon, henna tattoo on our legs, dine by the sea at Padang Kota Lama, coffee in a street cafe - so much food and fun. One of the best memories of a local holiday.
