Apologies for the lag on this latest post blogsters, but I’ve been engaged in an unpleasant, messy but most of all tiring battle with some kinda jerk illness. Hopefully not to the death. It’s been going on a while now, symptoms include:
- Sudden feeling of being in a sauna, improperly dressed
- Sudden feeling of being a snowman (carrot nose optional)
- Hallucinatory dreams
- Speaking in tongues (more so than usual)
- Universe brain - brainium feels like it’s full of rocks and constantly expanding
- Cactus throat. Breathing is spiky.
- Hot coal eyeballs. They burn!
- Impulsive righteous indignation at random inanimate objects for having transmitted illness to me
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| This is BEFORE delirium sets in |
I’m guessing it’s some sort of stupid hybrid super-virus that’s currently mutating, overcoming all my immune barriers one by one until I’m a walking zombie incubator of contagion, and the whole human race as we know it depends on an ill-timed sneeze.
What’s that you say? Exaggerate, moi? I wouldn’t know how, you see, up until the last couple of years, I’ve only ever been ill a handful of times. As a kid I remember I couldn’t wait to get the chicken pox (for reasons I no longer remember, I thought it was cool. Like my desire for an arm cast, glasses or a Mr. Frosty, I was wrong). Had I known the evils, not to mention regrettable taste, of calamine lotion, I may not have wished for a pox upon my house. When I finally caught it though, the illness bit wasn’t that bad. No school, bit of scratching, a lot of boredom and daytime tv - little did I know this illness was preparing me for college.
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| Things change, yet somehow remain the same |
So this week, I thought I’d turn this lengthy illness into a handy guide of illness do’s and do-not-do’s.
Do - drink lots of fluids. No, more than that. (And let’s hope whiskey counts, because if it don’t, I ain’t gonna make it).
Do - rest up. Remember the time that guy/girl left you, and you made a perfect duvet cocoon on the sofa? Like that. And wait it out. Vandalisation of photographic mementoes and sappy music optional.
Do – build a time machine, go back in time to earlier this year when you were offered a ‘flu vaccine in work, but this time do NOT get distracted by cats on the internet. You don’t even like cats.
Do NOT – picture all the fun everyone you know is having right now, in their carefree, unappreciated state of blissful health.
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| I imagine this is what goes on... |
Do NOT - give in to desperation and fall into the trap of “anything on sale in a chemist’s HAS TO WORK, why else would they sell it?!?" It doesn’t. Here’s why…
Hand sanitiser
Kills 99% of “germs”? What about the 1% that survive and you have now chosen to thrive? What’s next, BLOWTORCHES? Ever thought about just washing your goddamn hands? No? Oh, well, do – it’s a much more straightforward solution.
Virus-killing tissues
I suppose these may come in handy if you’re worried about catching something the next time you’re rubbing your mucosal orifices with someone’s discarded snot rags. Partial credit.
Face masks
Have yet to catch on in this country, but given the current disregard for sneezing etiquette on public transport, I’ve actually considered these myself, as an alternative to my current, admittedly poor, defence of fashioning my scarf into a homemade burqa. Turns out surgical-style masks (as popularised by the late Michael Jackson) don’t trap virus-carrying aerosol particles very well, therefore the only function they serve is to make you look stupid, paranoid and slightly scary. The way to go here is full-head respirators, like those worn by astronauts. Mine is on its way, being custom-designed and shipped from the furthest reaches of planet earth. I shall never remove it from my face, lest some wily pathogen gets in and the mask acts as a containment chamber. Take one last look at me world.
Throat lozenges
Apart from the stupid name, there’s nothing medicinal about these glorified SWEETS. There, I said it. They do offer some relief from cactus throat however, so they can stay.
Antibiotics
Have NO effect on viruses people! You know viruses, the things that cause colds/'flu? Anti-biotics kill off bacteria, and if yoghurt ads have taught us nothing else, it's that some bacteria can be helpful to the immune system, so now you’ve that to deal with too, as well as side-effects. And then there's the million blips you’ve just given a doctor to tell your stupid ass these facts (you can mail your cheques to me directly, thank you). Or (probably more likely) he's just automatically prescribed you antibiotics he KNOWS won't work to shut you the hell up. Pharmacy - 1, Science - 0.
Ok, for fear of turning into a Clarksonesque blog, I’ll stop my ranting right there. Suffice to say I’m suffering. At levels not previously encountered. In recent years, my immune system seems to have taken a somewhat more lax approach to unwanted visitors. In short, it’s just not racist enough. (To my more pedantic readers and parts of my own brain, yes, I do mean xenophobic. Now shut up and go back to watching QI reruns and pretending you knew the interesting bits).
A successful immune system recognises and attacks anything it deems foreign, just like my dad. This may be annoying when it’s freaking out over a molecule of pollen, but it’s the price you pay so that nothing deadly moves in and starts playing darts on your brain or turning your internal organs into smoothies. But my immune system seems to have gone all new age, preferring to allow bugs to linger about, probably having sleepovers and braiding their flagella rather than killing them like it’s supposed to. (Don't think I need to illustrate that one, pretty self-explanatory).
The worst part is realising your own impotence. Colds and ‘flu are caused by viruses, and particularly punk-ass ones at that, that modern medicine has yet to treat without causing side-effects even worse than the original illness.
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| Anti-virals. Side-effects may be worse than viral symptoms. But it's all we've got. |
Our only defence is the ‘flu vaccine. You know, the one I meant to get back in September, when it might have stood a chance of working. Oh, well, it's not like I'm a high-risk person. I'm not decrepit, with child or longterm illnesses, or IN CONTACT WITH POULTRY. Oops.
I always suspected those chickens would be the death of me...
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| You're next! |
