Sunday, February 24, 2008

That's It.

I had a horrible moment on saturday morning, about 2:30a.m. where I woke up suddenly and couldn't catch my breath. My temperature musta passed 40C. My hands, legs and feet were initially all pins and needles, then went plain numb and useless, which (along with the weakness and shaking) made it very difficult to dial for the ambulance. I knew it was just flu, but I don't know anyone around this area, my housemate's away and I didn't like those symptoms so I seriously didn't fancy dying from a cold; it'd be so humiliating.

So the paramedics came, checked me out and said I might need some antibiotics. They drove me to Lewisham hospital where it was my privilege, feverish and tired, to wait for four hours before a doctor turned up. There was a nice woman there who'd got drunk with her boyfriend, at which point he'd kicked her out of the house, then grabbed her by the hair and used her head to beat out a rhythm on the floor; he was in prison. There was also another exhausted flu sufferer and a man who's leg had spontaneously stopped working.

By the time, I'd finally got to see a doctor the fever had quieted (due to lots of paracetamol, water and fresh air), so he just looked me over, said I had viral flu, but there was nothing they could do for me. Well, actually, he said "Take nurofen", which I observed to him was basically ibuprofen + nice packaging = placebo effect, woo, and if I knew about the placebo it was unlikely to work, so could I save £7 and just buy the 90p generic ibuprofen instead?

I'm not 100% yet, but I have to go back to work tomorrow. I can't afford to spend any more time in bed, as I'm getting better far too slowly now and I know there's loads of stuff waiting for me, so I'd better go back in tomorrow. Ho-hum.

1 comment:

quietlybreathing said...

Hey, sorry you've been properly poorly. Feel bad for pestering you now. Perhaps you should stay in quarantine? xx