Unpleasantness

Janek told me about a month ago that for many years he hasn’t had a proper birthday do with friends. Playing the role of the faithful boyfriend, I suggested we organise something. Soon after, a plan for a Thai dinner in Newtown with friends, followed by a trip to the theatre to see The Laramie Project, was born. It was a lovely evening: the food was good, the company excellent and the production of The Laramie Project fabulous. It was, however, the beginning of a very unpleasant weekend.

As we was going to bed on Friday night, I felt a little nauseous. I woke up at around 7am shivering with a fever, quivering with nausea and moaning with a killer headache. I woke up Janek. He tried to help but there wasn’t much he could do; after two and a half hours of rolling around trying to get comfortable, taking panadeine and throwing it back up again, nibbling bickies and throwing them back up again, and feeling my temperature rise, we finally relented and called my mother for advice. After explaining that I don’t have a thermometer (“Well why the hell not?” “Because I’ve never had a fever at the new place, that’s why not!”), she told Janek to call an ambulance, especially since the vomiting was keeping me from taking pain killers for an increasingly aching back. I told her I didn’t like this advice, but Janek called an ambulance anyway; I wasn’t impressed. I then threw up a few more times, just for good measure.

The paramedic arrived on a motorbike, checked me out in a very non-descript kind of way. He couldn’t give me anything for the pain or fever, not even a paracetamol, and couldn’t really do much except radio for an ambulance, take my details and piss Janek off by telling him that I’m a big boy who can speak for himself when Janek went to answer for me as I lay there doubled over in pain. The ambulance arrived in about fifteen to twenty minutes and drove me the five minutes to hospital. Janek sat in the front as the ambo took my blood pressure, temperature and BSL, none of which were normal.

When we arrived at the hospital, I told them my details for the third time as I waited to be admitted. My temperature was rising and by the time I was triaged and told to wait in the chairs I was shaking from the fever as I sat there clinging to Janek who was trying valiantly (though somewhat unsuccessfully) to calm me down because all I wanted to do was lie down because my back was getting steadily worse. This part of the proceedings is a little foggy in my memory—I was exhausted and a little delirious—but I do remember telling the nurse “I don’t give a fuck which arm you put the name tag on, I just want to lie the fuck down”, to which he said that a bed will be ready soon, to just hang in there. I asked “Why can’t I just lie on the floor?” He told me that “it wouldn’t look good for the hospital”. They did let me lie down to take blood and insert a cannula in my arm, but only after I told them I’d pass out if they did it while I sat up. The guy (who may or may not have been attractive, but certainly had an attractive American accent) told me I had to go back to the seats. I wasn’t impressed. I seem to remember a lot of convulsing, babbling incoherently, crying and begging Janek not to let them make me sit up again. Unfortunately I had to give in eventually and ended up sitting up for what seemed like three hours (but was in fact probably only forty-five minutes) to wait for a bed. In retrospect I realise that, all things considered in a public hospital, this is pretty damn good.

They put a saline drip in my arm, gave me some maxolon to control the nausea and some panadeine forte for the pain and I slept fitfully for an hour or so while Janek went to get some lunch (I practically passed out because I was so exhausted from all the convulsing and shaking I’d been doing for the last few hours). When I woke up a doctor came to see me, three hours after I’d been admitted, and I gave him my details for the fourth time. Dr Tall-Dark-And-Handsome asked me about what had happened, my medical history, drugs and medicines I took, about school and work. The fever had settled down and I was feeling a little better but I still felt very under the weather. I still couldn’t get comfortable but luckily Janek had gone back to my place to get me my nice strong pain killers so I could float away in a less-pained cloud.

To cut a long story short... Dr Tall-Dark-And-Handsome told me it was either one of three things: food poisoning, meningitis or a sexually transmitted infection. What an interesting juxtaposition of conditions. They discharged me at 7pm, after two sets of blood tests, a urine test, two x-rays, three litres of fluid pumped through my veins and after I’d managed to keep a little dinner down. Dr Tall-Dark-And-Handsome’s supervisor, Dr Bubbly, came to check me out before I was discharged and agreed it was probably food poisoning but told me what to look out for in case it was meningitis. She asked if I’d had any direar. I said no. “Oh, it’ll come,” she promised.

Janek drove me up to my parents’ place, where Mum hugged us both a little too violently for my liking. The poor boy was exhausted; he’d spent nearly the entire day by my side, and the times he wasn’t with me he was running off to my house to get me things we’d forgotten to take in the rush to get to the ambulance. We went to bed early and he practically strangled me as soon as I got into bed with him as he put his arms around me. He’d spent the whole day telling me “It’s going to be ok baby, don’t worry” but I know he was scared shitless and didn’t want me to see his fear. I could see it, sometimes, but I didn’t want to call his bluff and destroy the magic of the moment. He told me that when he was out having lunch he called my Mum to update her, then Kate called and he lost it and started crying while they spoke. When he returned, he was nice and composed, all cheery and ready to allay my fears.

So now, Wednesday, I’m feeling much better. I’m still at Mum and Dad’s, staying in bed reading most of the time, and I’ll be going back down to Sydney on Friday. On Sunday I still had a fever all day and just had lemonade and the occasional sao. Monday was much the same but yesterday I felt much better and then last night I had my first full meal since Friday night.

I discovered that Dr Bubbly’s premonition came true: I had the unpleasant experience of the runniest, most pungent and rancid smelling direar I have ever witnessed in my entire nearly-twenty-five years of existence. But you don’t want to read about that.

A brief break

Hello all, Janek here, substitute blogger extraordinaire!

I'm just writing a brief note to reassure you that Dan is still alive, despite a brief trip to the emergency department with fever, nausea, and now the pleasantries of diarrhoea. Food poisoning is nasty stuff. He will blog again soon, as he celebrates the end of exams, his job, and Christmas... his favourite time of the year.

To celebrate a mere month until Christmas Eve, I've decided to end this post with something nice for Christmas...

Before the exam...

I always try to sleep in on the day of an exam. I like to think that I am more well-rested after a good sleep in; whether or not it is the case or not, I don’t know. Today I woke up at 11:50am. My exam is at 3pm, so I have heaps of time, but I feel very... floaty... today.

Last night my back was quite sore so I took some of my beloved pain killers and went to bed at about midnight and was almost floating away on a cloud of blissful sleep when I was hit with a sudden, and very violent, case of hiccups. I lay in bed, quietly convulsing violently, for a little while hoping that it would go away but alas it didn’t.

I went into the kitchen in search of vinegar.

The Exerciser was in there, making a light midnight snack (of fried vegetables and snags). I waltzed past him, to the pantry, grabbed the bottle of white vinegar and took a swig. He screwed up his face. “Dude!” he said, “what are you doing!?” By way of reply, I hiccupped loudly. “I’m—hic—stopping these fuck—hic—ing hiccups. Apparently.” He looked at me with a look that conveyed perfectly the disdain he no doubt felt, and finally said “Riiiiiiight….” at length. “No seriously,” I said, taking a second swig of vinegar, “it—hic—works. Truly.” He didn’t look like he believed me, and to be honest I was starting to join him. “You need some soft drink,” he counselled, “make you burp.” “Oh—hic—yeh?” I asked, “I haven’t—hic—heard that one—hic. I know about th—hic—e one where you drink—hic—a cup of water and hold your—hic—breath.” I filled up a glass and did just that, drank it while holding my breath. I put the glass on the sink as The Exerciser watched me with mild fascination. “Wait for it…” he said. But nothing came. Hiccups gone. I went back to bed. It was 1:30am.

And that, my friends, is the end of my story. Not very insightful, I know, but a good way to fill in time before I head over to my exam. Now if I could only get over this fucking cough that I seem to have picked up somewhere, then it’d all be fine!

Exam time is here again!

In what will no doubt be seen by some, particularly a certain boyfriend, to be an ironic self-fulfilling prophecy, I have sat down to write a post about procrastination and how it constantly inhibits my studying and working. Well actually my motives aren’t even that transparent; I have a shitload of work to do and I don’t want to. And since I don’t want to do anything at all really (even the classic procrastinatory activities of tidying my room or cataloguing my sock draw feel like they’re beyond me right now) it would appear that procrastination is so ingrained in my way of being that I even procrastinate when it comes to procrastinating.

So this is a pretty empty post as I wait for Janek to arrive with dinner and cough medicine. I woke up this morning feeling like some wayward goods train had gone off the rails inside my lower back while a small bird had died in my oesophagus, its small feathers tickling my throat as I breathed. I was very tired when I awoke, something I haven’t felt for a long time.

This is where I (Janek) cut in. I stopped his procrastinatory efforts, provided dinner, and cough mixture, and some much-needed TLC. My poor Dan has a lovely phleghmy cough (that I seem to be sharing to a degree) as well as a take-home exam to do and study for two exams. I’ve had to bring that whip out again, but this time it’s wrapped in tissues (for the runny nose). He’s also so very tired, and I’m worried that he’s been working too hard this week, but I can’t take any of that work away from him. I wish that we wrote in the same style… then I could do his exam work for him. Maybe even pass myself off as him for the exams…

So, we’re now sitting here watching Mulan while Dan works and I blog. After this, I’ve been given permission to tidy up his room. Yes, you read right… I CAN TIDY! :D

Oh, by the way, never watch cartoons with me. I've pointed out the flaws in the basic laws of physics that have been overlooked, the lack of continuity (how did the Mongal hoards get to the top of the palace without anyone noticing) and other general issues.

Anyway, I’ll end this post here so that I can hand the computer back over and he can type up part one of his exam, and he’ll come back and talk to you all again AFTER NEXT MONDAY *THREATENING LOOK!*

The soap has a face

I am exhausted. The new guy seems nice enough. I met him and have now “put a face to the soap” as Janek put it. He seems nice enough, though I’ve only met him once and that is the only time I’ve spoken to him.

The Optimist and I met him at the same time. He had his earphones in when he walked up the passageway and we said hello and moved towards him. We all chatted briefly about what people are studying etc, The Optimist and I told him how “fucken insane” his predecessor was, and then we went our separate ways.

I haven’t spoken to him since, and have only seen him twice. He’s already annoying me. He showers in the morning and they wake me up. If I can’t get used to it in two weeks I’m going to give up and get another room I think cos there is no way I’m going through another experience like I had before, even if his only sin is morning showers. Anyway we’ll see.

I haven’t decided on an alias for him yet. I’ll have to wait till I get to know him a bit better.

Back in the homestead

After a considerable amount of guilt-tripping on my mother’s part, I have come to The Homestead for the weekend. I caught the train here on Friday, probably losing a kilo in sweat as the temperature sweltered and the air-con on the train made a pitiful attempt to counteract it, and arrived at about 2.30pm.

Upon arrival I discovered that my room has become a kind of storage place of various bits and pieces that are too large for people’s respective bedrooms. This is what happened when Sister was in Melbourne though, so I’m trying not to take it personally. I had to lie down when I got here because my back was killing me from the train journey, and ended up sleeping from about 4 till 7. When I awoke Mum was home with two movies: Maid of Honour (starring the gorgeous Patrick Dempsey, whom my mother adores) and The Happening (by the same director as The Villiage and Signs).

Today I woke up at around 1pm, my first big sleep in for weeks. The rest of the family went to a big Family-at-Large shindig but I stayed behind because, to be honest, I wasn’t in the mood for crowds. Then tonight they went to a fundraising dinner and again I stayed home. It occurs to me that there isn’t much point in my being here if I don’t actually spend any time with my family but it makes Mum happy to have me here even if she doesn’t see much.

Well this post has totally lost direction hasn’t it? I might sign off now and get some sleep.