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December 31, 2005

CHRISTMAS JUST FLU BY

In the adapted words of John Lennon in his famed 'War Is Over' Christmas hit, "and so that was Christmas". Three days of excessive food and alcohol amongst family and friends and, given Christmas' exponential commercial appeal, a mountain of presents.

Christmas morning came and went with a fried breakfast and an investigation into what Santa Claus had left and by lunchtime, although I wasn't particularly hungry, we all polished off Mother's delicious roast turkey, bacon-wrapped sausages and all the trimmings, and then some. Dessert was profiteroles and two bowls of those meant I was as stuffed as the fateful turkey.

And then it was time for the Christmas games. Well, game. There were only four of us so we split into two teams and sat around the stereo system answering questions to the CD quiz. It seemed that the quiz had been designed by an over fifty for a group of over fifties, since the section on music (on which I was supremely confident) produced questions on Bob Dylan's 1963 chart entry, something about someone else in 1981, two opera questions and one other that I can't remember.

By now I was feeling a little dubious. I had a headache and stomach issues, so after lying on the sofa for a few hours, I went upstairs to lie down. By nine o'clock I was vomiting, had a temperature of 100 degrees and could do nothing other than lie in bed, shivering. The night was spent with regular half-hour trips to the bathroom to expel what was in my stomach, including little bits of carrot for those that were wondering, and this continued until about 4am. I hadn't rehydrated at all though, which was indeed an error, since all the sickness had rid me of bodily fluids. What little sleep I had that night was semi-delirious, my body starved of water and my brain half dreaming of liquids and half trying to deal with the strange dreams. What seemed like a three hour sleep was in fact only forty minutes and I couldn't down a whole pint of water for fear of throwing it all up again half an hour later, nor could I venture downstairs to fill my glass. But by 7am I'd had enough of tossing and turning and being so dehydrated, so I plucked up the courage to go get a drink.

Boxing Day was spent lying in bed, drinking Lucozade and catching up on sleep - the worst part of the sickness was over and this was the road to recovery. I even managed to take part in the annual jigsaw puzzle and open a few more presents. The next few days were spent resting and recovering, and after a 48 hour period of no food, I managed to get some pasta down my neck in an attempt to restore the half-stone that I appeared to have lost.

So that was Christmas. The one time during the whole year that I get incapacitated with illness and it's on Christmas Day. That is so very very typical. I didn't even have the priviledge of taking time off work with illness, since the days after Christmas I had already booked as holiday. Still, I did get to watch the following films: Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers; Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; Signs; Tomb Raider; Chicken Run; The Quiet American; The Goonies; Dr Dolittle; Dead Man's Folly (Poirot); The Incredible Theft (Poirot); and an old episode of Supermarket Sweep.

But don't worry, it's now New Year's Eve and I feel as right as rain....

Posted by jonola14 at December 31, 2005 09:35 AM

Posted by: shunta at January 8, 2006 06:28 PM