Lurgy

It’s early Sunday morning and there’s a helicopter circling the house. It’s getting ready to land at the hospital over the way.

It’s not for me. I’m bad… but not that bad.

Leaf through the virtual pages of the darned blog, all the way back to 2008, and you will find little or no mention of me being sick. There is a highly technical reason for this – I’m a jammy git. Although my childhood and early teens had some minor bits and pieces, the adult part of my 58 years have been amazingly sickness-free. I got Chickenpox back in ’97 and I… nope that’s it. I’m fairly sure that the remainder of the latter third of my life might not run so smoothly but it’s good to acknowledge that I’ve been lucky thus far.

This week, my luck ran out a little… but only a very little. As I said, the helicopter is not for me, and I sent wishes of recovery and wellness to whoever it is for.

This week, I caught a ‘thing’. I’m not sure what to call it but we’ll get to that in a short minute. The first hint of anything being off came at about lunchtime last Monday when I noticed I had a headache. “Damn”, I thought, “This thing I’m trying to do must be really annoying me, it’s given me a sore brain.” I struggled through with it until about five, when I noticed that it had got considerably worse. I procured some pills. They didn’t have any of the blue box ones, so I got some green box ones, which allegedly work faster, and a bottle of still water. That steadied things though I fell asleep during University Challenge, which is never a positive sign.

By Tuesday morning, it had all kicked off. High temperature, headache, backache, front ache, side ache, cough. “I know what this is,” I said, “I keep up with the news.” So, I removed myself from Society and booked a PCR test.

Two years into the Pandemic and this was my very first PCR test. Oh, I’ve done my share of Antigens, but I’d never had any cause to roll up and get professionally ‘done’ so to speak. I won’t write my way through the process because you will all know as much about it (and more) than I do. I will just say three things about it. 1) It was an incredibly smooth, friendly and efficient set up, carried out by people who were working very hard to make it right. 2) As I waited in my car, the man in the car next to me took off his mask and rolled down his side window, clearly in the mood for a chat, even though he was only two feet away from me. I politely declined, as much for his safety as for mine. 3) I didn’t have COVID.

So, if I didn’t have COVID, what in blazes did I have? In my opinion, I have never in my life had Flu. My knowledge of Flu is that it is a serious thing and if you have it, you have no doubt you have it. I’ve had colds, like the next man, and sometimes people call them flu. But not me. If you’re on your feet and operational, it’s not Flu. But I had something, and it was no joke.

In the day it took for me to get my PCR result, I obviously stayed at home and eschewed all human contact. I tried to work but fell asleep, drooling, on my keyboard (join the queue, ladies). So, I repaired to the couch and fell asleep in front of a boxset instead.

I got my COVID clearance at about noon on Wednesday and so I went to work in the afternoon. I know, I know. Bed. Hot drinks. Sleep. My temp was still buzzing in the upper 38’s and I should have been back on the couch, at least.

But we’re made of two parts. Mind and Body. And my mind does not often give my body licence to lay down. Even the day before, prone on the couch, my mind was full of the things I needed to be doing. How behind I was going to be. By the time I was cleared of you-know-what, my mind could take it no longer. Even if I was only getting a little bit done, I was still chipping away at the block. It helped my head to get those little things done, even if the other half of me wasn’t doing so good.

I worked through the rest of the week. Not very efficiently, to be honest, but I defend the decision to do so. I arrived at the weekend with a feeling that I was not as behind as I would have been if I’d stayed in bed and was I any sicker for not having done so? I don’t think so.

Friday evening was a reprieve in all symptoms, so we went out to a thing we both wanted to see. It was outdoors and we saw friends there and had a laugh for an hour and heard some lovely music and then went home.

Yesterday was back to shitty again. I had some chores to do, and it was a shuffling grind to get through them. But I made it to the couch for the Rugby so that was all right.

Sunday morning and the helicopter’s just buzzed off again. I feel bleary and achy and tight in the chest. I’m not quite done with this puppy yet.

Ask me what I have. I think I have the Flu. This was too much to be called a cold and, yes, I walked around with it and got some things done but it was a grim struggle, and I only did it to shut my head up.

Call me a fool. I guess I am.

Just don’t tell me this was only a cold.