STRICKEN with melioidosis, 53-year-old Ananda Perera was admitted to the Singapore General Hospital with just one symptom: an uncontrollably high fever.
'The doctors thought it was typhoid. I was soaked in a long bath filled with ice. The fever just wouldn't go down,' the media consultant, now 67, recalled.
The diagnosis took about a week. The treatment, no different today, was not a breeze.
Mr Perera was fed an intravenous drip of strong antibiotics containing sulphur.
'It felt like it was burning and biting my veins. I remember a young man with me, crying from the pain. It was meant to run for at least 60 days. I could even feel it in my lungs,' he said.
As for most patients, it remains a mystery how Mr Perera contracted melioidosis.
The former news director of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (now known as MediaCorp) could have been infected years before symptoms showed up in 1992.
'This disease takes hold only when immunity is low and I'd been out on the field to make documentaries on many issues over the years, even leprosy.'
The experience changed him. 'The illness weakened my body, but facing death made me more spiritual,' he said. 'I decided on early retirement two years later. I meditate. I count my blessings a lot more.'
Mr Perera has pledged his body for organ donation and medical research after his death.
This story was first published in The Straits Times on Jan 2, 2008.
