Gold905 DJ Vernetta Lopez, Who Just Recovered From Dengue, Calls It "The Most Agonising Thing" She Has Ever Experienced

It’s been three weeks since Gold 905 jock Vernetta Lopez, 48, was diagnosed with dengue fever and she’s finally well enough to talk about the horrendous experience.

According to Vern, she's still suffering from the after-effects of the viral disease and she believes it might take a while for her to fully recover from it. 

“The after-effects like fatigue kind of linger, though it seems to affect different people differently. Some say it would take a few months, even six months [for you to be totally okay]. And I'm like, are you kidding?” laments Vern in a phone interview with 8days.sg.

She calls the ordeal “the most agonising thing [she had] ever experienced”.

“It is something I would wish upon my enemy if I hated him that much, because it's awful. It's torturous," she adds.

“I really think that we need to up the dengue awareness campaign even more. It’s an awful disease because first of all, there's no vaccine and secondly you don’t become immune if you get bitten. And when you ever get it again, it’s worse the second time. What kind of evil disease is this?"

Vern, who had no idea she was living in a high-risk zone, also reveals that she’s “been locking [herself] in the house for the last few days because [her] area is a hotspot and [she] doesn't want to go outside.”

According to Vern, who's a crazy cat lover, she was making cardboard houses for the neighbourhood cats in her backyard when she got bitten by an infected mosquito. 

“It started off with classic flu symptoms but without any sneezing. It was body aches, headache, and then the fever. And I've never had a fever climb so quickly,” she says, adding that she quickly went to the doctor to  get a blood test as she suspected she had dengue. 

The next day, she found spots on her body when she was changing. “Then [I] got the call where [the clinic] confirmed it was dengue," she recalls. 

What worried Vernetta too was how, at that time, she thought she was allergic to Panadol. 

“When I was younger, whenever I took Panadol, I would sneeze like crazy and then pass out," she tells us, adding that she also couldn't take aspirin as she was told by doctors that it was too strong and would affect her blood cell count. 

"I was like, I'm just gonna die. I was in and out of fevers and I was crying. I was in so much pain," she recounts. 

Luckily, Vern, who is married to British engineer Wayne Gladwin, wasn’t actually allergic to Panadol.

“My husband said he looked at my allergy symptoms for paracetamol and they are not the classic ones he read about so we decided to try taking Panadol," she says. Wayne also assured her that he would be on standby and if anything happened, would take her to the hospital immediately.

“So I took one and it helped to ease the discomfort and pain a little,” she says.

She also started having a really bad rash (see below), which according to Vernetta, made her thighs look like “a whole red chicken turkey leg or something.”

“I was staring at it going: ‘This can't be my leg’,” she says. 

Thankfully, Vern had her family by her side to help her get through the past three weeks.

“[My husband] is my knight in shining armour," she says. "Every step of the way. He was like whatever you need, just let me know and he would arrange for it."

"Even in the middle of the night, there was once I just sat up because I was so uncomfortable. I was aching. I couldn't sleep. I was just so down. I was crying and he got up and started massaging my back, in the middle of the night in the darkness,” recalls Vern.

She calls her husband, her mum and her mum's helper as her "three heroes".

"My mum came [to my home] every day to prepare home-cooked meals to make sure I got as much nutrients as I could. That is important," she says.

For faithful listeners of Vern, you might notice something different about her.

She shares: "One very dangerous side effect, well for a DJ, is that I've been missing out words [in my conversations] (laughs). Maybe it was just a coincidence but I was WhatsApp-ing the Gold905 group chat and people were asking how I was. So I said ‘Oh, I'm good. And blah blah blah, I'm feeling much better’.

“Then Cat[herine Robert] replied “Are you sure you are well? Because you missed quite a few words.’ (laughs)”

“And I went back to read the conversation and I was like, ‘No wonder they asked me to take leave for the rest of the week’ (chuckles). So yeah, every little thing now I just blame  dengue because it deserves to be blamed for everything,” she laughs. 

Catch Vern every week day morning 6-9am on LIVE! with Mike & Vernetta on Gold905.

Photos: Vernetta Lopez's Instagram