Cold, Flu or Dengue Fever?

(VIDEO: Huyen cooking me lunch to make me feel better)

For the last couple of days I've been pretty under the weather. I've got a slight fever, extreme body sweats, congestion in my head, a runny nose and aches in my muscles and joints. If I was in the USA I would just assume I have a nasty little cold or a slight case of the flu. Further evidence of this would be the fact that Ryan has been sick for about a week.

That said, I'm not in the USA which makes me slightly paranoid that I may have something worse than the cold or flu. For example I'd say there's a fifty-fifty shot I've got Dengue Fever. It's prevalent in Southeast Asia and all it takes to get it is a bite from an infected mosquito. According to wikipedia here are the symptons:

This infectious disease is manifested by a sudden onset of fever, with severe headache, muscle and joint pains (myalgias and arthralgias—severe pain gives it the name break-bone fever or bonecrusher disease) and rashes. The dengue rash is characteristically bright red petechiae and usually appears first on the lower limbs and the chest; in some patients, it spreads to cover most of the body. There may also be gastritis with some combination of associated abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

Other symptoms include:

• fever;
• bladder problems;
• constant headaches;
• severe dizziness; and,
• loss of appetite.

These symptoms are quite similar to the common cold/flu. Making me even more nervous is that I just had a rash. Granted it's gone but still, I had a rash! And well, my stomach always hurts! And on top of that I've only been eating one serving of food at meals. I think that easily constitutes a loss of appetite. Oh, god, I have Dengue Fever!!!!!

By the way, I turned the camera off too soon on this video. A second after I turned it off Huyen says, "I am Vietnamese. I am strong. I do not get sick like you."

TRIVIA: Can you name these two fruit?

(PICTURE: Two very common fruit)

This is just a small example of the language difficulties. Take a guess what these two fruits translate to from Vietnamese to English.