If there is one thing I'm not good at, it's being ill. I moan, complain, tell everyone I'm near death, and then after a few days when life returns to normal, I say the illness hardly bothered me at all.
It started last Saturday morning when I woke up with my head in a flu cloud. I felt awful but hoped that I'd be able to shake it off enough to make grand daughter No 2's baptism the next day. I did all the right things - I had a hot bath, went to bed early, dosed up with hot lemon, headache tablets. I was determined to be well enough to travel three hours north for this very special family event.
However, I barely slept all night, waking continuously in fever - cold sweats and shivers - until my alarm went off at 6am. That's when I realised that someone must have run over my head with steam roller in the night because I could barely lift it off the pillow and my usual refreshing morning cup of tea had me rushing to the loo to vomit. Just as bad were the stabbing pains running along my arms and legs which made me feel that I was someone's voodoo doll.
As the family got ready to set off on the epic journey north, I knew I wouldn't make it. Not only did I feel wretched, I didn't want to take whatever I had to grand daughter No 2, or sit in the car with grand daughter No 1 for ultimately six hours and risk making either of them, or any other vulnerable people, ill.
My day was spent going through three kitchen towels and four toilet rolls and by the time my family arrived back home, my nose was as red as poor Rudolf's. What I didn't bargain for was the deep black hole I then fell into because of feeling weak and worthless and missing an event that was really important to me and one I can never see again.
After five days of self imposed quarantine, over the counter remedies, and endless nights of cold, soaking sweats, delirous fever, and pins and needles in my body, my other half tried to ring the GP for an appointment but as is usually the case, he couldn't get through because patients have to phone at a certain time of day. That's when everyone on the surgery's books who is sick tries to ring and it's pretty much like winning the lottery to then be able to get seen before the allotted time for making appointments expires.
The next step was to ring NHS Direct who asked him several questions. After answering them all, the service decided that I had to be carted away in an ambulance but I was having none of that. I felt foul but not unwell enough to justify going to hospital and after my mum died at the hands of the NHS, I promised myself that I'd never allow that to happen to me. Even if I'm in the middle of a heart attack, I'd rather die at home with dignity than be rushed into my local that cares more about bed space and targets then patient care. That aside, I'm very much aware that the NHS is the enemy of the smoker and they don't really like us darkening their hospital doors.
When the NHS Direct doctor rang back to assess my condition more thoroughly, I warned my other half to play down my symptoms. The diagnosis, therefore, was a heavy cold and Tamiflu was precribed "just in case". Personally, I think it was just normal flu and not the swine variety, but I do wonder how medics can distinguish between different strains of flu, or colds, without biological tests which don't appear to get done.
Tamiflu worked like a miracle cure and within a day of taking it, I felt infinitely better. Drama over and life now returns to normal but after several desperately delirious statuses left on Facebook during days in bed with nothing better to do than play with my mobile phone, I throught the world would like to know that the Drama Queen is not dead yet!