Life With A Dirty Kitchen: Day 5 and beyond

Today is the beginning of our healthy lifestyle and Jun fixes up the bike for me so that I can ride while he jogs along. We set out on our jaunt and we head to the clubhouse directly across from the holiday home as we had noticed earlier that there was a pool and we wanted to check it out. It looks clean, its only $1.20 each to swim there and no one is using the pool. We decide that after we finish on the bike and jog that we will complete our triathlon by jumping in the pool afterwards. Unfortunately my ride was cut short. As I was riding up a hill I hear a loud crack and realise that I have snapped the pedals! Whoops! In my defence they were plastic and quite brittle so it wasn’t just my brute strength that broke them. So after a long 5 minutes of exercise we walk back, change in to our bathers and head to the pool.

I’m excited to get back in to swimming. I’ve got my goggles and my flippers and I am set to swim some laps! Jun gets in to the water first and proclaims that it is freezing however I doubt that it’s that cold. I tell him to stop being weak and then I promptly eat my words as I stick in my toe. I’m thinking maybe I give swimming a miss today…… Jun encourages me to get in, good for rehab….. blah blah blah. He is of course right so I get in the water in what can be described as a painfully slow rate. Each inch of me that enters the water feels physical pain, I kid you not. Since we are in such a hot country, the outdoor pool is not heated. Now, I’m sure in Manila it would be ok but we are in Tagaytay in the mountains, it’s not exactly a heatwave up here! I suck it up, get in, do my exercises and swim my laps. Impressively (or stupidly) we stay in the water for about an hour. Success! The healthy lifestyle has begun!

For lunch Jun cooks up chicken soup (Tinola) with fresh lemon grass and malunggay leaves from the garden. My contribution is a salad which goes nicely with the soup and rice on the side. We take the food up on to the back terrace to enjoy the nice view and the breeze. Feels like Mediterranean living and I love it. I could definitely get used to this lifestyle.

Up at the clubhouse we had noticed they had Wi Fi for only 50c an hour. All that hunting for Wi Fi in the last few days and we had it just a stone’s throw away from our doorstep! Now we don’t even have to leave the estate, we have everything we need right here. After the Wi Fi fix and getting to skype with my brother Anthony and his children, we head home so I can start writing my first blog post. Life is good, I want to share my experiences with everyone.

(I had doubts of writing about what happened next but I have put it in as I want this blog to be a true representation of my experiences here in the Philippines.)

Life was good, until I finished my blog post. I start to shiver, why am I so cold? I think it’s time to lay down. I progressively get worse and start to heat up. I do however find the strength to go back down stairs to eat Bistek Tagalog (refer to day 1!). My lack of appetite means I can only eat a really small amount. Disappointing.

It seems that I have a fever. Not just a mild fever, but a full blown I want to die I am so miserable fever. Jun is so wonderful through the night and does his best to cool me down. I swing between shivering under the sheets whilst feeling like I am on fire to lying under the fan on full blast. It’s such a miserable night but I am so confident that it will pass in the next 24 hours with the help of paracetamol. How I couldn’t be more wrong.

The next morning it begins….. diarrhoea. Without getting too graphic, I will just say I have never had it this bad in all my life. We last in Tagaytay for 3 more days with Jun being the best carer anyone could hope for, feeding me apples, bananas, crackers and hydrite (gastrolite). I was pumping in the fluids the best I could but it just wasn’t easing off. The time has come to head back to Manila so I can get to a doctor. There is just one problem, the longest time I have been away from the toilet in 3 days is 1 hour. It takes at least an hour to get back to Manila. I am really not confident that I can make it back so Jun makes a suggestion that might help… an adult diaper. It’s a logical suggestion but oh how humiliating! Which is worse? Wearing a diaper or not being able to make the distance? I opt for no diaper, I think I would rather risk it than put on a nappy…..

Do I survive the journey back to Manila without misfortune or do I not? You’ll just have to read the next post to find out….