Notes from my sick bed

And when I say 'sick bed' I really mean it. I've spent an unnaturally long period of time in bed this week.

It all started when I got back from the Star Trek premiere on Monday. I'd developed a little bit of a sore throat throughout the day, but figured it would go away with a hot drink and an early night. Um, how wrong could I be? I woke up on Tuesday morning and *really* felt like I wanted to take the day off work. But, because I'd taken the previous week off as holiday, I thought it looked really bad that I'd take sick leave so soon - almost like I was struggling to get used to the whole work thing and, y'know, just needed a couple more days or something. So, I struggled into the office, drank two bottles of Lucozade, and generally looked a bit miserable. Tuesday evening I got home at around 17:40, and went straight to bed. I woke up four hours later with a temperature and decided this whole sleep thing was probably for the best and nodded off again.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling a bit better, but still not exactly top-of-the-shop, but headed into work again because I still figured the whole holiday/too-soon-to-take-time-off-sick rule applied. I even worked longer in the evening to make up for the fact it took me three hours to get into work on Monday because of bad the worst traffic jam I've ever experienced in West London. And when I got home Wednesday evening seemed to be going OK until about nine o'clock when I plummeted off the healthy cliff like Wily Coyote taking a tumble down a gorge in a Roadrunner cartoon.

I didn't really sleep at all well Wednesday night because my throat was so sore I found it difficult to swallow. I considered using a pint glass as a spittoon at one point, but the idea of disposing of a pint of spit the following morning kind of put me off; I mean, what do you do with it? Flush it down the loo? Tip it down the sink? Drink it?

Having only gotten to sleep at around four Thursday morning, I thought screw the holiday/too-soon-to-take-time-off-sick rule. At about 9:30 I called work to tell them I was gross and ill and not coming in. Unfortunately, I'd not taken into consideration the fact that I might not be able to talk, and I basically responded to my colleague who picked the phone up by honking at him like a mix between a goose, Pingu, and Dierdre Barlow from Coronation Street. I eventually got my message across, after being reassured that I sounded "horrific," and went back to bed.

I eventually got up in the afternoon, caught up on the episodes of Heroes and Gossip Girl that I'd recorded, then went back to bed.

I went back to work on Friday because although I was still feeling rough, someone was leaving and I thought it would be nice to say goodbye. Anyway, long story short, we spent a lovely afternoon down the pub, had a great lunch, and I was admonished by lovely boss lady for my whole concept of the holiday/too-soon-to-take-time-off-sick rule. She also instructed me to take some Echinacea because apparently it's a miracle cure, so I'll probably give that a whirl. On the downside, about 17:30 I started feeling uber rough again, and headed home as quickly as I could for round four of high temperature, night-sweats (nice!), and generally feeling crap.

Anyway, the one saving grace of this whole thing is that I woke up this morning tightly wrapped in my duvet, with a sterling idea for a new short story. I'm not entirely convinced that I'd like all my story inspiration to come after feeling horrific for a week, but on this one occasion I'll take it.