Should I... Shouldn't I?

I’m still wheezing like an old asthmatic on forty fags a day. It’s got really boring.

On Thursday I was standing in the chemists telling the pharmacist about my wheezing and asking for advice when another customer butted in and said ‘Don’t you think you should go to the doctors? What with all this swine flu about…’ I was outraged. How dare she acknowledge she was listening; I could’ve been talking about something really embarrassing. For a moment I considered describing my phlegm in gross and luxuriant detail… and then I said. ‘I was ill a week ago, I didn’t have a high temperature which means it's unlikely to have been swine flu, so no, I don’t think I need to see the doctor…’

However, yesterday, because I was at the hospital for my thyroid, I went in to see someone about my chest as well. I was discharged from him with the prerequisite myriad medicines. This always happens here because (I am told) the doctors make some money on each item prescribed. This is wrong; so wrong. And I hate it.

But I didn’t take the antibiotics; partly because I worry about this prescribing unnecessary medicines thing and partly because I thought I was on the mend… Anyway if it’s viral still and not a bacterial infection the antibiotics won’t help.

And now it’s 5.30 in the afternoon, my chest hurts, my head hurts and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe I should take the bloody tablets.

This picture was taken in Siam sky train station today. Anti-bacterial handgel is available all over the place and many people are wearing masks. What’s it like in the UK?

When we felt like Hagrid...

It wasn’t swine flu: I diagnosed myself. I didn’t seek medical advice about it but the respiratory bug that it was, knocked me right off my feet. Crucially, it didn’t give me a temperature and I’ve passed it onto the children who just got coughs. So, in anticipation of their return to school tomorrow we stopped in at the hospital to get them ‘declared fit.’

I warned my strapping 6ft 1” son (who’s 15) that we still had to go to the children’s department, and we all had a snigger that he’d probably try and get into the climbing frame room. Son was most disappointed to discover the play area was closed because of the swine flu virus, which I understand can exist for up to 24 hours on hard surfaces.

Toddlers raced around and babies howled. My great big children hung their heads and looked down at all the small people.

The tiny Thai nurse stood Son on the height and weight scales and then needed a step ladder to reach up to place the ruler on his head. Son obligingly crouched down to enable her to extend far enough to measure him which rather defeated the object, but then I suspect there’s no danger of him not growing sufficiently. I think after yesterday’s appointment that his files might well show him as having shrunk. A medical mystery perhaps.

Barney the purple dinosaur sat on the doctor’s desk; just in case one of my children might need him…The doctor examined them and then declared them both fit for school but in possession of coughs. He prescribed ten minutes each on the nebuliser and we were all issued with masks to make our departure from hospital safer for all the other patients.

I can’t believe that I took this picture in the treatment room. Clearly they weren’t very sick and I couldn't resist documenting the final embarrassment: the nebuliser masks they had to wear.

Knickers in a twist

I’ve got my writing knickers in a time twist.

It’s giving me a headache… but that could also be the respiratory bug I’ve been fighting off since Monday. I don’t think it’s the piggy variety but the longer it goes on… the less sure I am. Is there any point in having it diagnosed?

I just have to rest, take paracetamol and drink fluids until I feel better, right?

And in the meantime there are still the writing knickers and the time twist to sort out. *Sigh* Horses, bolting and stable doors an’ all: it’s clear to me why good record keeping would’ve been a wise move while I’m writing. Instead I have to trawl through 60,000 words to find out all the places that I’ve made statements about age and characters meeting and buying houses and all the things that should’ve taken eight years that need to happen within eight months in my story.

I thought I could do without paracetamol today… on reflection I think I’ll go and get another dose. I think my writing knickers might need to stay twisted for another day.