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WARNING : This article contains bad words like phlegm, vomit, bile and a few others. So two weeks ago Monday, I get to work and my morning starts off fine, I have things to do and start getting them done. Around 10am I start coughing a little, nothing too bad, just a minor sputter every now and then. By the early afternoon the minor sputters have turned into frequent spells of repeated coughing assisted by hot and cold temperature flushes. I start feeling a bit worried and leave the office around 3:30 to hunt down some medication. By Monday evening the coughing is heading to "Out Of control" status and so Nessie plies me full of Corenza, pain medication and some herbal drops, and I head off to bed to sleep it off. Well there was no way "sleep" was going to be on my agenda for the next 11 hours, as I lay in bed coughing like I`ve never coughed before. By 2am my body is so sore that I feel muscular spasms setting in randomly as my body takes a beating one cough after another. By Tuesday morning 8am I am shriveled up in bed, shivering from fever, every muscle aches, my neck is stiff, my throat feels like it is going to explode, my head is pounding. Nessie plies me full of medication and heads off to work. I spend the rest of the day unconscious, in and out of weird dreams, broken sleep, fever causing me to toss and turn as my body slowly surrenders. This flu is afraid of fuck-all, and is going nowhere in a hurry. Time to lie back and take it like a man.Two more days of this continue, eventually I start spitting up little drops of blood in my phlegm, time to head to the doc for a "WAAAAZZUP AND WTF ??!!??" |
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The doc checks me out for all of five minutes, mutters something about "I have the flu"...so I`m like "Bullshit, this is not flu, this is that stuff that came from Mexico isn`t it, the pork plague ?" "No, this is just a bad case of the flu...." "Come on doc, I`ve had flu before, it`s never been more than a sniff and its gone, why/how is this different ?" "Well you see, every year we get the flu, sometimes its effect on us is not bad at all, and sometimes it hits real hard...think of this as the Arnold Schwarzenegger of flu....." "........*panic*......." So the doc suggests I get a cortisone injection, which in hindsight I should not have agreed to...here`s why: Those of you who know me know about the paramedic things I got up to, delivering babies, fighting with jellyfishes, ripping dead bodies from wrecked cars, on more than one occasion I`ve happily shoved a 14 gauge needle into the left and right lung of a car crash victim to allow blood to drain from their smashed up lungs and ribs...all very Rambo. But don`t bring a needle near me to give me an injection...I will start shaking at the very thought, my body starts freaking out, I feel my blood pressure start dropping immediately and generally I act like a three year old girl who`s Barbie has just lost its head to Zombie Ken. In short, I turn into a big weenie. Me. Needles. Not a good combo. I head off to the nurses counter where I`m asked if I have any allergies, I say "Yeah, needles", the nurse smiles at me with that "What a pussy" look in her eye, and she heads me into the cubicle to prepare me for my shot. So I start taking off my shirt thinking I`m gonna get it in the arm, the nurse is like "Drop your pants please Mr. Blake..." "........." "This will only take a second, and you wont feel a thing..." "..........." "I don`t like needles, so be gentle, being our first date and all..." "Just don`t go running out of here when I inject you with your pants hanging around your ankles..." she cracks as I see her filling up the tiny syringe with liquid. I think to myself "If she wasn`t holding that weapon of mass destruction in her hands I`d wrap my frikken hands around her throat and...." At this point she injects me with what feels like a tree stump, and then, halfway through the procedure decides it`s a good idea to WIGGLE THE FRIKKEN SYRINGE AROUND A BIT !!!!!!!!!! As jy daai woord 'knyp' ken..........
But anyway, I feel this liquid start flowing down my leg, around my back, and of course this is too much for me....I yank my jeans up and head back to the nurses station to get my forms, and this is where it gets really interesting. As I`m standing around, I start feeling a bit dizzy....the nurse hands me my forms and tells me to go pay at the reception at the front of the hospital....she has to point me in the right direction as my senses start getting muddled up. I toodle off down the hallway and suddenly people start turning into weird shapes, noises become muffled, things get a bit blurry....I think to myself "You`re gonna pass out motherfucker, find a place to sit down !!!!" Of course, in this hallway there are no chairs, only pot plants, they don`t look very inviting, so I stumble forward into the main reception foyer and see a whole bunch of chairs to the left, and it`s at this point that my field of vision starts narrowing. The white light. Inner peace. My life flashing in front of my now very blurry eyes. A man standing at the door where the bright light is. "St. Peter, dude, help me...." and I stumble towards the light. As I get nearer I make out its not St. Peter, but Sipho the doorman. I turn left and just as the last bit of light is slowly vanishing, I find a chair and plonk my dizzy ass in it. I sit there for a few minutes and regain my sight, my body is cold from the sweat...I start fanning my face with my folder and think to myself "And they want me to PAY for this ??!!??" After ten minutes I pay and leave, hoping I`ll never have to come back to this place. I drive home, weaving slightly on the road as my body adjusts to this newly injected stuff floating around it. I get home, head upstairs and start throwing up. It continues like this right through Sunday, but the vomiting has ceased now, so I feel a little relief. On Monday I get to the office, and leave an hour later, coughing, sweating. I lie in bed all Tuesday, having crazy dreams as I lay balled up with the fever, Wednesday I try the work thing again, I last half a day and get sent home. For the next two days its just nausea, vomiting, sweating, headaches, coughing, bile, phlegm, one fucken thing after another, my body feels like shutting down for good, I can`t anymore, I start swearing and cursing at every God out there, in the hope that one of them will send a lightning bolt to end my pain, but they were obviously too busy to care. No lightning bolts :( Weekend rolls on and Saturday morning I start feeling a bit better, I actually eat something and it stays indoors, no vomiting. Woohoo !! I get all excited...thinking I`m getting better....then another pain sets in. With all the 'not-eating' and trickling of phlegm into my system, my stomach ulcers have returned. Oh. Fucken. Joy. Dear. God. Why. Sharp stabbing pains keep me awake for the whole night, now I have to start taking medication to stop acid production in my stomach so the ulcers can heal, man AM I HAVING FUN OR WHAT ?!?!?! Its now Monday evening, two weeks since the bomb dropped, I am upright, I was at work the whole day, eating, not vomiting, no bile, a bit of phlegm, a little cough here and there...but I feel much better, I have eaten two toasted sarmies, a chicken mayo roll, drunk two Super M`s, one cream soda, one Lucozade, eaten a packet of Jelly tots and sucked a few Halls Vitamin C drops....life is peachy again. |
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