Last week I went to Las Vegas for MongoDB’s sales kickoff. The night before I left, Sunday, I came down with a decently high fever. I got a bit nervous, as it came on strong and fast, but I took some Advil, went to bed, and the next morning felt ok to get on a plane. That whole Monday was pretty good with the help of some more Advil. On Tuesday morning the Advil was giving ground, on Tuesday evening it was in full retreat, and Wednesday at 5am I found a helpful MongoDB employee in the hotel to take me to the ER.

Apparently, while in the Dominican Republic for a family vacation, a.k.a playing with my kids in the water, I was bitten by a mosquito carrying Dengue fever. So I have now officially crossed “Get a tropical disease” off of my bucket list. I’m very excited about that.

I have two take-aways from this experience:

First, I don’t recommend getting Dengue fever. It’s not pleasant. Use a lot of bug spray, really.

Second, if you do have to get Dengue fever, make sure when you get really sick, and are given a fair amount of morphine, that a) you do not write any code, and b) you be administered said morphine in the presence of co-workers, who then have blackmail material for life.

I’m still a bit under the weather, but at least I’m not contagious.

Seriously, though, don’t get Dengue fever.