Swine flu rides out.

So I was sitting up in bed at about six o’ clock and every time I breathed it sounded like I had swallowed a drawerful of plastic bags, all scrattling together. Not good.

So when I dragged myself out of bed at eight thirty, I rang the doctor. Well first I held for the usual fifteen minutes while they played me music and occasionally told me to ring 999 if I was dying and then played me more music and told me how far up the queue I was, then when I got to ‘You are number one in the queue’ it suddenly started to play me the ‘If you think you may have swine flu’ jolly fun tape, so I hung up as instructed and dialled the National Flu helpline.

Well what a joy.  A solid ten minutes of how they would prosecute your socks off if you were joking, followed by five minutes of how you should know the patient’s name and have it handy when necessary.  All this while I coughed incessantly, as us plastic bag lungs aficionados do, and wet myself copiously and intermittently lay my head on the dining table and wished I were sitting on the toilet, especially when the dire rear kicked in again every time I sneezed. Anyhoo………. finally a human being spoke to me, oh good, and she was broad Irish.  She couldn’t understand me either, because I was coughing. So it went like this:

Ees der peychent greey at all, atall?

UHu, hack UChu ugh ugh Uchu.

Whaat’s dat?

Uhu huhu hacku uch.  NO.

EEs der peychent lyeen on der floor, as far as yu can see?

Uhu aha hack hack, on the table.

Yer hev to answer yes or no to dat one, or I have to begin again.

Huch huch huch no.

Does der peychent have der lumps onder the skin. At all?

Huch huch huch huch whooshoo, ohshit, huch huch.

Roihgt, Oi’ll begin again.  Is der peychent greey, at all?  At all?

Happily I’d already lost the will to live so after another twenty minutes of this insanity I was prescribed Tamiflu, about five days too late, and given a 12 digit unique code to pick it up from a pharmacy I’ve never heard of before. 

Better than that, I’m married to a former MLSO, who told me to ring the doctor, which I did and had a sane conversation followed by a prescription for antibiotics.  Which my husband, who had the jab in the autumn and is healthy, will collect on his way back from the gym.

It’s a good job I work out.  You could be ill with this.