SICK BED GRAVITAS

" Colloquial expression for sick or ill as, for example, to be under the weather with the flu. The phrase "under the weather" came from British sailing ships. When a sailor became ill he was confined below deck out of the weather, so it was said that he was under the weather."

Here I sit banging out my misery, 5 days down with a nasty flu turned to Asthmatic Bronchitis, feeling being confined to me cot is not good enough, I should be chucked overboard and fed to the sharks.  Horrid, just horrid is how I feel.  There is no other way to describe it.

Patent medicines have been bought, cough drops and syrup sucked and drank ad nauseum...

The best thing received was a bottle of pills that broke up phlegm.  Buckets and buckets of phlegm have been hacked up and tossed away.

Any doctor worth his degree will tell you that once infected with a nasty flu, one has to take position of 'riding it out', the worst will come and it will run its course.  Mind, there are some anti-biotics that provide some relief but there is no cure for it.  You suffer, depending on how server the flu is.  And if you do not protect from more germs.

At me flat, the germs went riot.  Hurled selves at this old geezer and then at poor Paul.  There were times when it was a contest of coughing.  One making more noise than the other.  Paul came down with a lung infection. as did MOI with the Asthmatic Brochitis.  The phlegm really started to flow.

Sharing a breathing machine with seperate masks, Paul and I did breathing treatment.  Still do.  It adds to the relief that can be had from the illness.

Too much stress and long hours caused my system to fall prey to the nasty buggers that infect me body at present.  Had I been fit, it may well have not visited me, this horrid illness.  Even getting flu shots did not protect from.

A bit of a lie-in is one thing, this state of illness has turned into a love affair with me cot.  It will not do.  Mind, however hard I command the body, it has mind of its own, and refuses to listen.  I stay up a few hours a day, eat a bit and return to me cot, exhausted.   Fever comes in the night, I sweat.   I cough endlessly.  I am a pathetic blighter.

Now that I have made all of you ill with my illness, I think it is time to drink some hot tea and force a few slices of burnt toast down.  All of this comes by way of reading emails wondering why there have been no new posts of late.  Now you know.  Sorry you asked??

I am on the mend, it will be more like another week of rest before I can face the battles ahead.  I will try to come up with some clever bits for you.  Have had loads of times to think on the stories to tell.

Sorry, have to run, more phlegm to hurl...