Having just returned to the office after being infected with Covid-19 for the second time, Thuy Lien shook her head in disgust and saw that the person was hot, the thermometer was only close to 40 degrees, sore throat, chills.
At the beginning of October, Lien was infected with Covid, just recovered for a week and re-infected, returned to work for two days, suddenly she had a fever. “I don’t know what’s wrong now,” she sighed.
Thuy Lien asked the company to let her work remotely from home, asked her parents-in-law to help her four-year-old son, to buy medicine to take home for treatment. Her husband had also been hospitalized three days before because of the flu, taking fever-reducing medication was still 39-40 degrees. “There are only three members in the family, but now each person is in one place. At the peak of Covid, my family did not have to be isolated like this,” said a 31-year-old woman in Tay Ho (Hanoi).
After two days of treatment, the fever could not be reduced, so she was hospitalized and shared a hospital bed with her husband. The son misses his parents, cries all night, not letting his grandparents sleep. Tomorrow morning, Thuy Lien’s father-in-law, nearly 70 years old, has to go to school. The road is closed again, the old and the young are tired. Lying in the hospital, Lien and her husband were both tired and impatient, but helpless.
Family members and children waiting to be examined at the International Center, National Children’s Hospital (Hanoi), late October. Photo: Pham Nga
The situation of Ms. Thuy Lien’s family is similar to that of many other families in the capital, when dengue fever, influenza A, influenza B, Covid-19 … overlap. Many families have just recovered from Covid for a few days, continue to have flu and fever, turning their lives upside down.
Statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Hanoi show that the number of dengue fever cases has increased rapidly since the beginning of October. The whole district has people infected, an average of more than 1,000 new cases per week. , increased 3.2 times over the same period in 2021 and exceeded the average in the period of 2019-2021.
The fact that there are many epidemics at the same time makes people bewildered, not knowing what disease they have because the initial symptoms are quite similar. Assoc. Prof. Do Duy Cuong, Director of the Center for Tropical Diseases, Bach Mai Hospital, said that many people think they have Covid-19 when they have a fever, but they ignore the cause of dengue fever. When the blood is concentrated and there is a deep low platelet count, the patient comes to the hospital for examination.
This is the third time in a month, Thuy Lien has to ask for sick leave. The accumulation of work forced her to bring the computer to the hospital to work. However, due to the nature of the job, she had to talk a lot, but her voice was weak due to the flu, most of Thuy Lien had to put it aside and wait for her discharge from the hospital. “I feel like someone grabbed my hair and drowned me in the river, pulled it up and then drowned it. Tired and depressed because the whole family was sick in succession,” she sighed.
Nguyen Thu Hoai (31 years old, in Thanh Hoa) is also sitting on the fire when both she and her two children are sick. Her husband works the night shift, she holds a small child in one hand and wipes the older child with one hand when the child has a fever of 40 degrees. “Five nights in a row I stayed up all night even though I was also sick with the flu. At night when I held my baby, both sides were as hot as coals,” she said.
Hoai would have been less tired if his mother had stayed at home. A few days ago, she received a phone call from her son asking him to rush to Hanoi to take care of him. “The boy’s fever hasn’t been cut for five days, if he doesn’t take care of him, he and his wife will probably be fired,” his son asked for help.
“I have three sisters, but I can’t ask anyone to help me, because every family has sick children,” Hoai said. “Sometimes when I’m sick, the baby cries in my arms, if my nerves are not stable, I can’t calm down enough, I’ll go crazy,” she said.
Doctor Truong Huu Khanh, epidemiologist, former Head of the Department of Infection – Neurology, Children’s Hospital I, Ho Chi Minh City, said that every year there are waves of flu and dengue fever. , two years of travel restrictions because of Covid means that we are less exposed to viruses, so when we reopen, the possibility of infection will be higher. “That’s why many diseases are constantly breaking out. Not only Vietnam, many countries around the world are also facing this situation,” he said.
In addition, people’s anxiety about the health of people after two years of Covid made them worse, leading to stress. In addition, some hospitals and clinics, because they want to increase their revenue, or if they don’t have a good specialist, appoint a lot of tests, admitting patients to the hospital when they are not needed can also increase patient anxiety. homie.
Nguyen Thi Tinh (65 years old, from My Dinh, Hanoi) was miserable when her two-year-old niece cried all night in the hospital. Her grandson had dengue fever, but his condition was assessed to be stable, so the doctor sent him home for treatment. But reading on social networks, seeing many people warning about the risk of death when the dengue epidemic broke out, Ms. Thu Hoai, Ms. Tinh’s daughter, had just given birth, demanding that her husband and mother take the child to a private hospital. treat.
“She has never been away from her mother, crying bitterly day and night. The patient on the next bed also complained, tired but more tired when coming to the hospital because of my nephew’s cry,” she said.
She was well and was about to be discharged from the hospital, but Mrs. Tinh coughed and had a fever. The test found that she had influenza B. Her son-in-law came to pick her up again, leaving her mother to stay in the hospital for treatment, for fear of infecting her newborn grandchild. “Naturally, when I was healthy, I ran to Hanoi and was hospitalized for half a month,” she said.
A nurse measures blood pressure for influenza A patients hospitalized at Thanh Nhan General Hospital (Hanoi), July 6. Image:Chile
Doctor Truong Huu Khanh said that at this time, except for those with good resistance, the rest, everyone can be a patient of fever, influenza A, influenza B, or dengue fever. People need to learn to adapt and accept treatment with optimism.
In addition to keeping the spirit, psychology master La Linh Nga advises family members, especially women, to share the burden of work and child care with family members, to reduce pressure for themselves. when sick, fever overlaps at the present time.
“When you are too tired, don’t suffer, tell your loved ones about your health condition and ask them for help,” Ms. Nga said.
After a week in the hospital, Ms. Thuy Lien has returned to work but “people are like borrowed”. The stacked work forced Thuy Lien to stay at the company until late at night. “The next match was sick, maybe not because of the virus, but because of the deadline,” she said.
Thu Hoai and her husband’s life after 10 days also returned to the old rhythm, when she and her children respectively recovered from illness. My niece in Hanoi is healthy, so the housework has a grandmother’s hand to help.
Pham Nga
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