Take Two and Don't Call Me

So I'm not dead.

I got really sick last week. Fever, headache, cough, congestion, etc. I'd had one of those awful English colds you can never get rid of for a couple of weeks. And it seemed to turn into full-blown flu.

I went to see my GP, always a treat. Sure, it's "free" thanks to the $400 deducted from my pay cheque every month. My GP is actually good about letting you get a same day appointment. Normally that means you come at the appointed time, see one of the on-call docs, and then they send you on your way.

However, this time, I had an "extra" slot which meant I didn't have a set appointment. I had to wait an hour, and then I only got a few minutes with the doc. She did manage to look in my mouth, and told me that the back of my throat was very red. "You seem to have an infection in your throat," she said.

Hmm, I wonder what might have caused that?

"Do you want to do a swab?" I said.

"Oh, no," she said. "Just take some paracetamol (which is basically Tylenol) and gargle with warm salt water."

"Do you want to give me drugs?" I said. I was hoping for a Z-pack. Z-packs are brilliant. By the second day, you are ready to invade Czechoslovakia.

"Oh, no," she said. "Just paracetamol every four hours. Gargle. That's all you need."

What I needed were drugs. Strong drugs. Instead I've been living in the 19th century here. My throat doesn't really hurt, but still not back to normal. And my chesty cough has moved up into my head.

I spent five days more or less locked in my flat. Which is a sweet place to be. But I was crawling the walls by day three. Started writing a new play on day four (that's been boiling up for a while). Back to work on Monday. And this has been a long week.

A few things will pop up though, so stay tuned . . .