{"id":738,"date":"2003-08-11T14:57:56","date_gmt":"2003-08-11T14:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-738.html"},"modified":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","slug":"sick-again-sigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2003\/08\/11\/sick-again-sigh\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick.  Again.  Sigh."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It started a week and a half ago with a sore throat.  As is normal for me, this became an earache, and then the whole thing dropped down into my chest for a congestion party.  Weakness, exhaustion, dizziness.  Last Wednesday the doc diagnosed a &#8220;non-specific viral infection&#8221; (how often have I heard <em>that<\/em> recently), possibly brought on, and certainly exacerbated by, stress.<\/p>\n<p>Work has been very understanding.  In addition to the sick leave I took while I was, well, sick, I&#8217;ve also taken a week off to try and get my head back together.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/crowninn.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/crowninn_small.jpg\" alt=\"The Crown Inn, Humshaugh\" align=\"left\" style=\"margin-right:7px;margin-bottom:4px;\" \/><\/a>On Friday we rented a car and drove down to Northumberland.  We found a wonderful little hotel, the Crown Inn in Humshaugh, a few miles out of Hexham.  Unfortunately, I woke up on Saturday morning with a rotten headache.  I thought it would go away with some breakfast and tea, but it didn&#8217;t happen.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/martin_alex_hexham.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/martin_alex_hexham_small.jpg\" alt=\"Martin and Alex in Hexham\" align=\"right\" style=\"margin-left:7px;margin-bottom:4px;\" \/><\/a>We spent the rest of the day in and around Hexham.  Abi assures me that we had a good time, but it&#8217;s all a bit of a blur for me.  The headache just kept getting worse and worse.  Every time I moved my eyes, turned my head, or shifted my posture, I&#8217;d be struck down by a vicious pounding right behind my eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday night was awful.  Double-doses of paracetamol and ccodeine weren&#8217;t helping.  Thinking that I might have been dehydrated, I was drinking vast amounts of water.  And if I wasn&#8217;t just lying on the bed, in the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/3138865.stm\">sweltering heat<\/a>, trying not to toss and turn for fear of the hammering pain, I was getting up every hour to pee.  Which, of course, started off the cascade of rippling violence  throughout my brain.<\/p>\n<p>By morning I was exhausted, soaking with sweat, still in agony from my head, but now also from my overworked kidneys, and incredibly bored.  (I hate it when I&#8217;m so ill that I can&#8217;t even <em>read<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and then I had to drive us back to Edinburgh.  Gah.<\/p>\n<p>We made it back and I collapsed.  I managed to sleep for a while, but if anything, my head was getting worse.  Abi called the emergency doctor service.  They reckoned that I was too ill to come to the medical centre, so the on-call doctor came out to see me.  She diagnosed an opportunistic bacterial infection in my sinuses.  (I hate bacteria.  They come in and kick you when you&#8217;re down.)  So now I&#8217;m on antibiotics and some new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diclofenac.com\/\">painkillers<\/a>, and I&#8217;m glad to say that I&#8217;m feeling a lot better.<\/p>\n<p>Last night, after the first of the antibiotics had kicked in, and the pressure behind my eyes had relented a little, I almost thought I was fully recovered.  But that was probably just because the pain before had been so bad, and <em>any<\/em> respite felt like nirvana.  Now, I&#8217;m just back to feeling weak and exhausted again.  My head still hurts, just less.  I&#8217;m still coughing, and still feeling congested, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.docflash.com\/phlegm.html\">phlegm<\/a> isn&#8217;t luminous green any more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/bites.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sunpig.com\/martin\/images\/2003\/08\/bites_small.jpg\" alt=\"Bites\" align=\"left\" style=\"margin-right:7px;margin-bottom:4px;\" \/><\/a>Oh yeah, and I&#8217;ve got a gum infection behind one of my wisdom teeth, and bizarre, continuously spreading insect bites all over my body.  Sigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It started a week and a half ago with a sore throat. As is normal for me, this became an earache, and then the whole thing dropped down into my chest for a congestion party. Weakness, exhaustion, dizziness. Last Wednesday the doc diagnosed a &#8220;non-specific viral infection&#8221; (how often have I heard that recently), possibly &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2003\/08\/11\/sick-again-sigh\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sick.  Again.  Sigh.&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}