Stuck

'You got to get yourself together
You got stuck in the middle
And you can't get out of it.'

I'm stuck indeed. Not in the middle of whatsoever, but at home.

Usually, I would be la-la-la-ing away at the Bach Room in the music centre at this time. But since I can't even speak properly, I'm not going for choir today. So I cheered, 'Great! God has already planned for me to go to NUS and NTU open houses with my buddies!'.

Much to my dismay, my condition has worsened. It took me the whole morning to sit upright because I was shivering and feeling faint and nauseous. I guess it's because I spend so much time sleeping the body needed time to adjust my blood pressure. I don't think I can stand right now without feeling nauseous, let alone walk in the blazing hot sun outside to meet some class people at Boon Lay station at noon. :(

My mum has been feeding me some bio-enzyme drink which you mix with water. The powder is made up of 'natural complex enzymes' extracted from 'corn, wheat, pineapple, white bean, papaya, banana, seaweed, rice germ, tomato, pumpkin, burdock fruit and formosanus vegetable'. Talk about kiasu-ism, haha. Anyhow, I'm glad that what I only have to digest is the extracted powder, not the food itself. How would I eat rice germs anyway? I've already got enough bacteria in my body. And I've never heard of the burdock fruit or some sciencey vegtable called formosanus. The powder tastes wheaty and it doesn't dissolve in water. My mum says some people gag when they drink it. I'm glad my blocked nose saved me from this misery.

Talking about enzymes, I remember being fascinated during one Biology laboratory lesson where we boiled a piece of pig's liver. (Yes, I took PURE BIO in secondary school, but I prefer the ARTS!) The raw piece of meat was so fibrous that jabbing it with pincers reminded me of extremely gummy candy. But as we boiled the liver meat, it gradually hardened and flipped to become curved, like how squid meat looks like when it is cooked. The texture turned rough and looked like the taste buds of a pig's tongue. The liver was then useless. Its proteins denatured due to high heat, meaning that the protein structure was being unravelled, annulling its functions.

Then I remembered what my Biology teacher told us, that this is what happens when one has too high a fever. The body, in its defense mechanism, deals with bacterial infection by commanding the liver to pool up blood in the head and brain area. Since there is more blood up there, the lower body parts get relatively lesser blood, resulting in coldness. By accumulating heat in the blood, the body fights the bacteria and tries to denature them. And because the brain is the control centre, the war occurs there to protect it. However, if the temperature gets too high, the brain itself may be damaged in the end.

So, the controversy derived is, should we wrap ourselves in blankets because of the shivering cold or just bear with it and sleep in an air-conditioned room? One belief is that you prevent further heat loss in your limbs by using blankets. Also, the body will perspire in response, causing the fever to subside. That is what I just did. But my mum says I should just sleep without my blankie so the temperature would go down. Which one actually works? I have no idea.

Well, the silver lining in the cloud is, my body has been fighting well. (Good job, body!) The cilia (I think) has been brushing my phlegm upwards and it comes out through the nose. After puking green vomit with specks of phelgm in it, I can breathe properly! To tell the truth, I had been waiting for the puking to happen today. I stuffed myself with food so I had something for the phlegm to come out with. I didn't know I lacked water and it happened to be some chlorophyll drink. When I drank it, voila! All the muck came out.

What's more, I can readjust my taste buds to eat blander food and not pig out because I have no appetite to. I get to sleep for 9 hours or so, which for me, happens only once in a blue moon. I am forced to rest at home before my busy March holidays begin. A blessing in disguise!

While I'm stuck at home, I think I'll have to appreciate the beauty of boredom, in being idle and doing nothing.