Feb. 18th, 2007

baratron: (introspection)
Eurgh. Why now? Why me?

Flu got so bad last night that my irc friends insisted I went to see a doctor. My temperature was up to 39.7 °C (103.4 °F?) and I was hallucinating. With Richard and my dad both away (separately), I had to find a taxi to get me to Kingston Hospital in time for the emergency out-of-hours GP there. The worst thing was, by the time I saw the GP, the paracetamol had kicked in, meaning my temperature was "normal", and I was left with an overwhelming sense of having wasted the doctor's time. I did say it was the first time my temperature had been normal all day. And I checked it myself while I was waiting for the taxi back (sitting outside because the bright lights and heating in the A&E reception were too much), and my thermometer (identical to the one in the hospital) read 38.1 °C, so I don't know what was going on there. More interestingly, my peak flow was down to a fairly pathetic 350 (units), when it's normally 460 - and I am the person who can be almost completely unable to breathe yet still registering normally on peak flow. So that does, at least, show something.

Today there has been basically no change - my temperature is averaging 38.something °C, climbing to 39.0 °C when I'm due to take more paracetamol. I'm randomly too hot or cold (the periods of cold seem to occur when my temperature is highest, oddly enough), my nose is streaming, and my left ear feels like it's going to burst. And I feel guilty for cancelling my work for the next 3 days - even though I can't think straight, am clearly very infectious and have seen an actual doctor who told me not to consider leaving the house before Wednesday.

Gah. This is the third? fourth? illness I've had in the past month. There was the snotty wheezy maybe-allergy thing, the high temperature and gallbladder pain that drifted on for days without either getting better or going away, the really intense period pain with screaming agony that required 120mg of codeine just to keep me vertical on the sofa, er, and the other snotty wheezy maybe-allergy thing that apparently developed into flu. My immune system must be flatter than a pancake. It also occurs to me that I have probably contributed to my immune system being flatter than a pancake by insisting on struggling on with minimal days off work instead of taking an entire week off to recover.

But it's really difficult to know when you're sick enough to need a week off to recover when the difference between allergy-related and virus-related snot is so miniscle. And I just feel guilty for taking the time off when it stops people who need lessons from getting them... :X

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