If you're fine, fine, fine, I'm sick, sick, sick!

(See what He did with the clever Slipknot lyric subtly parodied to fit the situation?
He's ever so good at those slight puns.
For those of you don't know The Heretic Anthem,
the line goes "If you're 555 then I'm 666.")

This whole episode started way back on the 20th of October, which was over a month ago now. It was a thursday, I remember because I had a 3-hour lunch break. That's when my headache started.

That evening I was faced with the standard energy-crash dilemma:

SCENARIO A:

I do all my homework, staying up much too late, getting much too tired and winding up much too ill for school the next day. Waste of time. Here, the question is:

"Is the satisfaction of knowing you've done good by your homework and can be proud of the achievement worth the physical exhaustion the next day?"


SCENARIO B:

I do none of my homework, getting plenty of sleep, and turning up for school healthy and apologetic. No homework though. Here, the question is:
"Is feeling good physically and turning up for class worth the negative guilt imposed by the disapproving teachers?"

I ended up with a kind of "6 of one, 1/2-a-dozen of the other situation":
I did do some work, but realised there was no way I could go to school the next day, I could just tell.

Sure enough, I had to stay at home on Friday and Saturday and Sunday, pumped full of headache pills and stomach-blockers.

By Monday I was feeling quite better. Not 100% yet, but well enough to go to driving school. That went on till Friday, and I got completely better. Had badly-timed growing pains in my legs, which didn't help with the stiff clutch they had on their Clios, but I just put up with it.

Gave myself Saturday off to recuperate.
I was completely cream-crackered after the 40 hours in cars anyway.
My first proper day of holidays, I deserved a break.

Sunday we had company round for lunch, which lasted well into the afternoon. I got a bit of reading done, but no proper work. I still had half a week, it would be plenty for catching up on the one-and-a-half days I had missed.

Monday lunchtime, and it was back to square one. I simply couldn't eat. This carried on through Tuesday, so on Wednesday we went to see the doctor. I was due for an MMR booster anyway. He said it was just a virus, take the mega painkillers and it should be gone by the weekend.

Which would have been fine. I'm usually on good enough terms with my teachers to get away with a stunt like that, they'd understand. Plus parental note overrides everything in these situations. I'd cope. No problem.

Thursday.

Yuck. Still not better. Not eating, and this time I was throwing up, too! Water-vomit is orange, in case you were wondering. And it hurts. Because it has to come from a long way down. Not fun.

That night was the worst night of my life.

I hate remembering it. I was genuinely afraid.
Feeling like you're falling, even though you just have, is the weirdest feeling I know. It creeps me out. This time it was worse though. I'm perfectly used to almost falling over in the middle of the night in the toilet because I didn't have enough for supper. That happens all the time. Sometimes, if I'm having thrill issues, I can even convince mysel it's fun. Like a game. Aim for the bed or you lose. But this was different. I was already in bed. There was nowhere lower to fall. And I don't mean that metaphorically.

The only thing I can compare it to, and I don't know how useful this will be, because I don't know if anyone else has experienced this the same way as I have, is what I used to feel like when I went to sleep when I was quite a bit younger.
I could see myself in my bed, from above, spinning slowly, and fading, going down. Not down anywhere in particular, or towards anything real, just down. Generally into darkness. It was sort of a transition between awake and asleep. My way of knowing that I was definitely on the way to Dreamland now, just a few more seconds of keeping my eyes shut and -
That always reassured me. I felt in control, knowing that I could always just cancel the whole operation, by opening my eyes. Simple.

This was different. It was all faster. I got worried, because it happened in spells which were longer, and seemed even more so. I felt no power over my own situation. Nervous about the guarantee of still being conscious in a few seconds time, I shouted; partly to get my Dad to come and hold my hand, and partly to remind myself what sound was like, and to check I was still here. I wasn't though. Not really. Mentally, I was a mess.

Talk about tempting fate. Thursday evening, before I went to bed got really bad, I had tried eating some toast, and Dad had looked over and said how terrible I looked, that he was beginnning to get a bit concerned, and that he was wondering wether I shouldn't be in hospital on a drip or something.

By Friday lunchtime, after more vomit, I was.

For the sake of my good mood and getting this damn post up at last (it's now Thursday 1st December), I won't go over the entire story of my hospital experience. I wasn't myself, I got very bored, they did lots of tests, it took them a long time to work out what I had. More on exactly what that is later.

However, at least one (in fact I can think of at least 2) positive thing(s) came from it:

I got lots of visits, and I'd like to thank the following people for making this troublesome experience as agreeable as possible with their visits and chat (and especially letting me use their houses!)

(There's no real order to this, except if you count that in which I remember them. Also, anyone who gave me half a thought counts as well, but you can't be mentioned, because I'm not telepathic.):

Saz, Tammy, Tash, Tess, Sash, Amy, Clémence, Jane Early, Maggie O'Boyle, Mum, Dad, Joanna, Alain, Phil, Nancy, Cara, Emily, Jo, C&C, and anyone else I might have forgotten (hope you understand, I mean, if you were there, you saw the state I was in!) .

Completely besides the point here, but notice how most of the people in that list are girls???
What (if anything) does that say?