Bring on the Night

FYI: This is an older story that occurred back in October when my wife was here.

About 1 month after my wife arrived here in Denmark, I caught what seemed to be one of my turbo colds turning into the regular flu. I don’t know if you noticed but when it comes to colds/flues there are 2 different people in the world: Those who only catch the sniffles and those who do it properly – If you haven’t guessed already – I’m in the last category.

This time it started with, what seemed to be a regular cold. A sore throat that just wouldn’t go away and the normal potent headache. Before long it developed to including the common flu symptoms with throbbing headache, dizziness and so on. I wasn’t bothered since this was “business as usual” for me.

See, I just can’t get a running nose like normal people, but are always knocked out completely cold for about 1 week. This means drinking at least three litres of tea every day, nose sprays, plenty of paper towels and a red nose. As always this is spiced up with lacking and irregular sleep, headaches, sore joints and worst case I need to take some painkillers. I really try to stay of the painkillers, but some times this is just necessary to take these to get through the day. The “stage” of having the flu, usually ends up with me having a bloody nose during a “blow-out”. I have learned that this is a good sign, annoying as it may seem, because this tells me that I am close to being well again.

This time the running nose wasn’t there, and in the start I was happy to be without it for once. I should’ve started worrying by then. Still my throat kept getting worse and cold sweat, headache and following dizziness started too. So after 4 days I booked an appointment at my doctor knowing that penicillin was the next step. At earlier occasions this was the same. Even those times when the doc sent me home without an antibiotic because a blood sample was not conclusive. I could feel that it was only a matter of days, before I returned with an unchanged condition and delivered a flu-ridden sample. It never fails. I think the mix in my veins is 50/50 when it comes to blood and penicillin.

The symptoms were not improving, and by now my girlfriend (now my wife) was getting worried on my behalf. So I felt pressured to do something to calm her.

Next day we hopped on a bus to the doctor. My “luck” hadn’t deserted me yet, and I managed to drag my girlfriend 1 hour to early out of bed. Somehow I mixed the time up, which meant extra waiting time at the doctor’s when, on top of that, I was feeling really bad. What I thought when I looked at the watch and decided that it was 10.00 o’clock and not 11.00 o’clock, I’ll never know. I am sure it must have been the dizziness and not lack of brains erhm.

This doctor’s clinic is one big house with 3 practicing doctors. I am still not 100% sure which is my regular doctor, because I am always called in to a different doc from the last one. Maybe I am such a pain in the ass, and they raffle about who has to hear me whine. Or maybe none of them wants to see me without a shirt. I don’t know. This time was not different, and to spice things up, they had a medical student working as an intern. Maybe she never heard of me, or maybe she just likes a good challenge, who knows. Fact is that she drew me and I was called to her “office”.

I have no doubt that she is an excellent student and will be a great doctor in time, but like all other students you need to work some years to get the calm “I-don’t-give-a-shit-if-you-die-look” when you ask people about the symptoms. I could sense her being new and worried from a mile away. Furthermore most new interns still have the “I-have-become-a-doctor-to-help-people-thing” going on. So they do their job well and very thorough. Maybe too thorough in this case. Fact is that she asked all kinds of questions and tested things that most experienced doctors would never have to find a conclusion.

Put yourself in my situation:

I felt really really bad.

I was cold sweating and freezing at the same time.

I had no clue what was wrong, and had all kinds of thoughts

This was the first time my girlfriend was with at a Danish doctor house.

The intern seems easily worried and asks unusual questions and runs a lot of tests and never said what she was looking for.

These things combined made my thoughts run crazy. What was wrong; and how serious was it? It seemed serious? At the same time, I had to be the link to my girlfriend, and stay cool. So this is exactly what I did when the doc tested my blood pressure. I stayed cool. Too cool and became very pale.

This was due to the now overwhelming thoughts racing through my mind: “What if this is serious and I have to leave my girlfriend home alone while I go to the hospital? How will she manage buying food, communicating, and who would take care of her, if I passed out right now on the floor?”.

By then my girlfriend and I had communicated using English, but still very basic English. I could talk to her, but in a limited vocabulary, and only I knew what words she understood. I have seen family members trying to engage in conversation, but when you stray only a little using other words the communication broke.

Suddenly a dozen of horrible scenarios came to mind, and this affected my already fragile health. Well actually I got so pale that the doctor noticed and asked me if I wanted to lye down. I declined to keep appearances up not worrying my girlfriend. I stayed pale and could feel the dizziness increasing.

By then the doctor engaged in checking my pulse, only to find it gone! I don’t know how, but seems I must have a hidden skill to complete stop my heart rate when my brain works 120%. If the doc looked worried before, this was nothing when she stuttered “I can’t measure your pulse?!”. I have never passed out, and hopefully never will, but this was a close one I am sure. I could see the frustration and confusion in the young doctor’s eyes, and somehow I finally caved in and decided that lying down actually was a good idea. And I guess it was, for 2 minutes later the dizziness and paleness were gone. well, at least back to normal (for an ill man of course).

The consultation ended up with me getting some antibiotics for my now extremely swollen throat and a blood test to find out what was wrong.

Next Monday I called the doc and was told that I was nothing less that the proud owner of mononucleosis. Great I have mono. I’m 33 years old, and now I get mono. A teenage disease! The stuff I should have had when I was 14, but nooo Fortunately you can only get this once.

I have now read more about mono, and found out that most people get this without ever noticing it. Most people think it is only a small cold or a “scratch” in the throat. But not this individual. No, no. I just had to go through several days without being able to sink anything but a little bit of soup. I had constant dizziness, felt tired, sweated like a pig or froze like hell. From what I understand only very few get as ill like me. I have heard horror stories of even fewer who were forced to stay in bed for many months. My “luck” was that this at the same time happened at the worst possible time when I had responsibility for my girlfriend all new to Denmark.

I guess people are different, but I for one reserve the right to hate people that never get ill. You lucky bastards!

These are the same people that one day can come to work with a slight running nose and a bit of headache, and 2 days later I have to call in sick cursing the disease spreader to hell. I hate it. It is pretty hard to explain to the boss and colleagues why I am out cold for 1 week, when most of my co-workers only get the sniffles, or worst case, are away 2 days. Even harder when your boss is made from the same assembly-line that produced Robocop. Well actually my boss is great, but I can’t help thinking if people at work regard me as somewhat of a fragile whiner.

So if you are seldom ill, chances are that I don’t like you very much :-)

Once again I am confirmed in my belief that god only hates me.

Ps.: The antibiotics I got didn’t work at all, so I had to go back to the doc and get a new prescription for some more powerful mojo. That did the trick, but I felt exhausted for 3-4 weeks all in all. If you ever had mono, you know what I talk about.