Illness abounds

I have just spent the last two days in bed. No it wasn’t a lennonesque BED-IN protesting about world peace or cheaper cheesy wotsits. I was ill. It was a quite non specific illness which drifted into my consciousness about 3:15 Monday when I started to feel like shit. You will remember from my previous post I was feeling quite happy and positive on Monday but by 4:00 I was at home and in bed feeling like I had not slept for the past two months and yet I couldn’t sleep! What was that about?

I am quite sure that it was not sciveritis (for the Americans out there a ‘sciver’ is a colloquialism for one who avoids work) as when I woke up the next morning I could hardly raise the energy to get out of bed – so I didn’t. I stayed in bed until my wife informed me that youngest son had a swollen face – yes folks he had mumps. So I had to get up, ring the doctor and take them to the appointment, even though I felt like death warmed up. The Doctor didn’t even notice my enfeebled state as he poked son around the chops.

Why is it that when we men get ill everybody else’s illness is more important? (Especially the wife’s) Mumps, here in the UK, is a notifiable disease and the govt have to be notified and a nurse has to come around to our house, what for I don’t know, probably to paint a large red cross on the front door before she bricks it up.

So with number two son ill I get very little attention as I lay in bed – ok I was marginally happy as I had a few books to read, I was strong enough to just about manage to turn the page. I didn’t have the strength though nor the inclination to make it to the front room to watch day time TV – see how ill I was.

All a man needs when he’s in his sickbed is a little sympathy, a little caring and a little consideration – and that’s ALL I got. I mean come on, where were the grapes, the lucozade, the chocolates and the bedbath? In the evening I even had to open my own whisky bottle.

On a more serious note, I know I have been in the ‘death zone’ since hitting 40 odd. You know the time zone within which men of a certain age a prone to heart attacks. This was bought home to me about three years ago when my dad had a heart attack and then a tripe bypass. I had my heart and health checked out and was OK but my cholesterol was up a bit, but through diet I got it down.

But I just found out yesterday, off my mum, that a friend of mine from school has just died from a heart attach. So that’s even closer to home. I think this is another ‘sign’. So I really am going to have to watch my health status.