Licensed to Ill

We're only in the third week of term, and I'm taking the day off sick. It started last Wednesday with a simple cough; since then I've gone through sore throat, great hacking cough, great hacking cough with nasty phlegm, chest pains when executing the great hacking cough (or even breathing deeply), extreme tiredness, and reasonable dizziness.

Kevin tried to take me to the doctor on Saturday when the 15-minute walk to Tesco proved too much for me and resulted in the aforementioned chest pain and dizziness. However, his cunning plan was thwarted by the fact that the university health centre is closed between 4:30pm on a Friday and 9:00am on a Monday. I obviously didn't qualify as a medical emergency, so there was nothing for it but to wait until yesterday morning.

Kevin walked me to my 9am lecture and then made an appointment for me afterwards. The doctor seemed fairly unconcerned about my dizziness — it seems that having had labyrinthitis earlier this year means that my inner ear will henceforth be more susceptible to being affected by simple flu viruses. Fun, fun, fun...

I managed to go to most of my lectures yesterday, despite very nearly falling asleep for real in the last one (I had to resort to biting my fingers for the last ten minutes in order to stay awake). Today I got up at about 10am ready for my first lecture at 1pm. As the morning wore on I felt less and less like going outside, having spent a good half an hour trying to cough up the night's phlegmmy congestion. My trusty bottle of Benylin seems to be less effective today than other days (yes, that's how ill I've been feeling — I voluntarily bought and am taking Benylin), and it's been incredibly grey and gloomy outside all day, which is probably affecting my state of mind too.

Hopefully this'll clear up sometime soon — after all, I definitely need to be well in a couple of weeks' time for a Very Special Birthday Party (for which I still need to find a silly hat to wear). More details soon...