Death Warmed Over

I feel pretty rough right about now, though I'm not sleepy really. Brain feels worn out but then I've had my RPG group across at the house today for a monster session of D&D, which involved one huge battle royale where the group took on an entire Cult of the Dragon ceremony complete with Dracolich in a straight fight. 3 of the 5 members of the party were killed in the ensuing chaos (the characters played by Gareth, Tony and Matt), but by the end of the session they had either been reincarnated or raised from the dead (for the 5th time in the case of Matt's maniacal dwarf barbarian), and the group finished the session by teleporting back into the cult stronghold to continue their crusade to wipe out the cultists.

Still many hours in a small room with 5 other people has had some side effects, namely a nose that is running like a tap, eyes that are stinging and my throat feeling a bit raw from all the speaking. It was a good day though, and was in a way compensation for there being no Games Club last night (the hall was booked out for a Quiz Night instead). We got about 2 normal sessions worth of adventuring done in the space of today, as well as a lot of chat and laughs.

So I'm sat here now with the curtains open, listening to a folder of Bangles mp3's and feeling a bit urgh. I have a novel in front of me, that I need to write a book review for, but I'll leave that for later today I think. I do need to order some more novels though, as I'm down to just 3 on my back list to read now. Hopefully all the caffeine I've drunk in the form of coffee and cola will wear off soon so I can get some sleep. I am quite enjoying having this weekend off as a holiday. no work for me until noon on Wednesday!

Monday The 13th

Some people fear Friday the 13th, there's even an offical phobia name for that (Which a quick Google search revealed to be: Paraskevidekatriaphobia). Not me though. To the best of my knowledge, nothing bad has ever happened to me on a Friday 13th. Monday 13th on the other hand, that's another story.

I'm not a Mondays kind of person anyway. It has got nothing to do with the usual Monday blues that affect office workers and the like, who get to go back to work on that day. I work most weekends so I don't get that. I'm not sure why it is, but me and Mondays just don't go well together. And at no time is that more apparent than a Monday 13th, such as today. Guaranteed come rain or shine, something bad always happens to me on a Monday 13th and today was business as usual.

I woke up this morning, sat up in bed, yawned and then stretched... and damn near choked from the blinding flash of pain that shot up and down the left side of my torso. I have no idea what caused it, but the muscles in that side of my body have ached like hell all day, and every now and then spasmed slightly just to rub salt in the wound. A couple of these have had me gasping for breath. It has thankfully subsided now though as the day nears its end, and I am hopeful that when my body relaxes in sleep tonight, the muscles will sort themselves out so that tomorrow I will wake with just the memory of a day spent in pain, and not facing another actual day of such.

A look at the calendar reveals that there is but one Friday 13th this year, but 3 Monday 13ths! Thankfully, with today almost over, and one last month as well, I just have one more to "look forward" too in 2006 and that is several months away.

Strapped Up

Over three years ago, I slipped on the dancefloor in the Cafe Mamba nightclub and landed heavily on my left wrist. For the first (and thus far only) time in my life I broke a bone. The pain was so intense, so much a surprise to me, that I went into a mild state of shock and a far greater state of denial. Had it not been for my friends who caught up with me as I was walking home, I don't know what condition my wrist would have been in by the time it got treated.

As it was they called a taxi, and my mate Derek Adams accompanied me to the hospital and waited with me for several hours before I was seen too by a doctor. X-Rays were taken and I found out that I'd broken a couple small bones in my wrist, behind my thumb. Weirdly, the impact with the floor hadn't broken my bones, they had been snapped by my other bones crunching them, as the breaks were on the other side of my wrist to the side that hit the floor.

So I was plastered up and sent home, and told to return in a week to have a new cast fitted, as the one I was put in that night was temporary, designed to allow the break to swell and then subside again. The new cast wasn't plaster, it was fibreglass. When it was drying, the doctor twisted my wrist slightly and held it thus until the cast had turned solid and would hold the wrist in that pose for the next five weeks while it healed.

I thought the posed wrist felt wrong then, but I didn't say anything. I figured the doc knew what he was doing. After all he likely set bones dozens of times each week right?

Three years on I'm not so sure that my silence was such a good idea. My wrist healed up sure enough but not fully. I can hold my right hand out with the palm upward, with the palm flat. I cannot do that with the left one any longer. From time to time the wrist aches. For no reason at all, it will throb. As far as I know there is no cause for this. It happens no more often when it is cold than when I am in the warm. And the throbbing can last days. At times a constant tingle, at other times bad enough that I have cause to grit my teeth to bear it.

It started up again today. At times like this I am thankful that I kept the wrist support the hospital gave me to wear for a few weeks after the cast came off. Reinforced with a metal bar, and secured by four velcro straps, it can very effectively immobilise my left wrist. Typically a day or two spent with the wrist strapped up like this causes the pain to stop. I've had it on most of today, and I'll likely wear it at work tomorrow. I wonder how many will notice?

Why I Left

Last night close to a dozen of my friends saw me get up and leave a showing of Underworld: Evolution at the local cinema. I've never walked out of a film before and I didn't walk out of this one voluntarily. I was feeling sick. I had been feeling queasy through quite a lot of the day, owing to a series of minor headaches that came and went. The walk down to the cinema did wonders for my stomach, settling it to the extent that I felt safe in eating at the McDonalds near the cinema.

I was enjoying the film. I liked the first one and the sequel was doing a good job of following the dangling plot threads left over at the end of the original and expanding upon them. I will doubtless buy it on DVD (along with the original) when it comes out and finish watching it then. It was the films' rock video style of cinematography that got me though, the rapid cutting between different camera angles, the flashes and such, that brought my headache back with a vengeance. That was what caused the hasty exit, and I barely made it to the loo's in time.

I came back in to get my coat and then walked home. I could have come back in, sat down and watched the film. But I didn't know if I would be sick again (not having anything in my stomach to be sick with has never stopped my body before). So I walked home by myself, and that seemed to do the trick again, much as the walk down there had done. Illness aside it was a good night out, just a shame it ended how it did.

Ill Again

I can remember a time not so long ago when I hardly ever got ill. Sure I'd get the sniffles, or a cough but it was never serious and I could continue working through it. The cold would be gone in a couple days. My only regular worry was headaches. Not so nowadays, when bugs seem to be getting past my immune system all the time.

Take this current one. I finished work last night at 9pm and was fine. By the time I got home I felt cold, so I wrapped up in my dressing gown. Didn't help at all. By 11pm I was shuddering uncontrollably, teeth were chattering together and I felt cold through to the bone. So I went to bed, I have a 13 tog quilt on my bed, and I snuggled up under that. All the while trembling nonstop. I couldn't get to sleep, and about an hour later I had to get up very suddenly and dash to the loo to be sick.

I've been back and forth ever since, all last night and this morning. Both vomiting and diarrhea. Right now I feel utterly hollow. I'm not eating anything today. Past experience of this sort of bug has taught me that the best way to kill it is to starve it out, so all I'm taking today is water, both to fill my stomach (and thus stop me from going mad with hunger), and to flush my body through. Combined with the ache from the top of my mouth, I'm not in a good way. Took the day off work, which I can't really afford to do. I just hope I'm feeling better for the weekend.

Headache Attack!!

Woke up yesterday at noon, and within minutes I had a headache. It was mild to begin with, but grew stronger through the day, and as a result I didn't eat anything, as I knew it'd end up being hurled down the loo anyway. I was still sick though, throwing up a pint of water I'd drunk, so I've been careful to only drink small amounts since then.

I spent most of yesterday asleep, which wasn't easy after sleeping for like 10 hours the night before, and finally I couldn't sleep anymore. So I distracted myself for a couple hours by watching X-Men the movie, which helped me (mostly) forget the pain in my head, until of course it finished and the headache came back.

By then I'd had enough, and got dressed, pulled on my sheepskin lined denim jacket (a xmas present from my mate Jon last year, very useful it is too!) and headed out to the supermarket down the hill, which is open 24 hours. I don't think I've ever been shopping at gone midnight before, but it was a weird experience. I don't think there was another customer in the store, I know I didn't see one. Lots of staff filling shelves though. It was bizarre, but at least I didn't have to queue at the tills (heck I had to call someone to open a till so I could buy my goods).

The walk there and home again did me some good, it is late November and the air is brisk, which was nice. I bought some Nurofen Meltlets, which are these clever painkilling tablets that dissolve on the tongue, so no water needed. Also they are lemon flavoured so no bad taste in the mouth afterward. I bought a few other bits for my cupboard and the fridge (I can't ever go into a supermarket and come out with just the item I went in for it seems), as well as a can of Heinz Roast Chicken soup, as I was by then ravenously hungry and figured that if I couldn't keep solids down, I should be able to manage soup at least.

The soup was really good, and I had a couple slices of bread with it, broken up into small pieces and dunked in to give the soup a bit of texture and to test just what I could keep down. Thus far no problems, the tablets seem to be doing the trick in ridding me of this wretched headache, and the food is staying where it should. Here's hoping Wednesday is nicer to me!

My Throat Hurts

Well the back of it anyway, up at the top of the neck. I think I have a bout of Tonsilitis. I get one about every year or so, and I am kinda overdue for one. Still, knowing what it is doesn't stop it hurting everytime I swallow, and generally throbbing even when I'm not doing anything. I normally just dissolve 4 aspirin in water, and then gargle with the solution. Has always cleared it up before, the only problem is that I'm out of soluble aspirin. Time to head to the shops, even though I really don't feel like leaving the house.

Die Bug Die

I've been ill for a while now, and this is now officially the longest that I have ever been sick (that I know of), this current bout of illness now beating the first three weeks at University when I suffered with Lampeter Flu (named for the town. Anyone who comes to the University there, who hasn't had it before, will get it and suffer with it for up to a month).

I've lost the rest of the flu, that's dead and done, no runny nose, drowsiness, cold sweats, headaches. They are defeated. But I just can't seem to shift this bloody cough. It's not even that bad a cough really, it has its bad moments sure but I can go a couple hours sometimes between it acting up. It just annoys the hell out of me that it is there, lurking, ready to strike.

So I've had enough, and have now bought a bottle of the most vicious cough medicine I know of, Covonia. The stuff tastes like... well sort of a mutant cross between licorice and what you would imagine your own armpit tastes like after a five mile jog! Still as utterly revolting as it tastes I'm hoping it can do the job. And I have plenty of orange juice to swill my mouth out with after it has gone down.

Insomnia Sucks

I can't sleep, well not right at this minute anyway. This is most likely due to having been asleep for most of the day and a pretty big chunk of yesterday too. I think my body is rebelling at the idea of spending more time comatose. See I'm still ill, and this worries me. Normally I get something like flu and it is here and gone within 48 hours, always been the way, apart from a 3 week bout of a very virulent strain that I got when I went to University in Oct '96.

Only I caught this flu on Sunday, suffered with it at work Monday and Tuesday and I've had the last couple days off work (my 2 days off this week). And I'm still ill, if anything it has gotten worse. I've lost all feeling in my nose aside from the bottom of it which stings like crazy and is very red. My lungs feel like they've been put through a cheese grater. I was sick earlier today and to add to my woes I gained (and thankfully lost) a headache earlier today as well. In short I am not a happy camper right now.

I've taken hot lemon (thanks for that Gareth), exhausted my supply of Max Strength Lemsip powders, taken aspirin and flushed my body with plenty of water. And I'm still ill. So now I'm resorting to drastic tactics. I'm starving the little bastard out. At the time of writing this I've not eaten anything in over 12 hours now, and I threw up earlier the couple sandwiches I did have for lunch before the headache stole my appetite away. My stomach is growling now and then, but it gets nothing, not until this bug is well and truly dead.

So it is really annoying right now that I cannot sleep, because I'm forced to be awake, with an empty stomach. My hatred for this strain of flu grows by the hour. But until it is dead I put nothing past these lips but cold water. I've gone over 3 days without food before now simply to prove to myself that I could. Let's see how long this bug can last.

I'm Ill

I hate being ill, it really isn't any fun at all except for when you're at school and your Mum insists you stay home that day... and even then it isn't much fun cos you spend most of the day in bed, with a temperature and a rapidly depleting box of tissues. I'm not at school and as Jeanette is on holiday at work, taking the day off sick wasn't an option either (though I was late, bloody alarm clock ceased working in the night!).

So I have spent all day snuffling and sniffing, feeling really rather sorry for myself and trying to avoid the tired cliche of men being utterly weak and pathetic when they get ill, which women so love to bring up to tease us with. I've gone though a lot of tissue today, and this is super absorbant Blue Roll that we use in the store, not regular tissue.

I've taken some Lemsip Max Strength now to try and kill whatever bug I have got, and I have plenty more of it to pour down my neck if the little bastard can't take a hint and sod off to annoy someone else. I've got better things to do than be ill.