Hack, revisited

I'm ill.  Very, very ill*.  So ill, I might even up and die**. 

Must be nearly Christmas.  How do I know?

It's because I have my annual chest infection.  Hurrah for the good old seasonal traditions. 

It started last Wednesday, made itself properly felt on Thursday, and has me coughing like a wiry old docker with a 60-a-day habit.  Knowing from bitter experience that the only thing to shift a chest infection for me is a course of terrifyingly powerful antibiotics, I made an emergency appointment with a doctor for Saturday morning.  He listened to my chest, looked down my throat and up my nose, said lots of sympathetic and encouraging things, then prescribed me a week's worth of erythromycin.

I looked up the list of possible side effects, and rather wish I hadn't now.    One of them is "temporary deafeness." 

I said "TEMPORARY DEAFNESS."

So, my chest hurts where my "big tubes" are infected.  My lungs hurt.  My back muscles are sore from coughing.  My head aches from a mixture of the deep, echoey coughs and the lack of sleep.  My throat is sore from barking like a seal.  My stomach is decidedly dodgy from the antibiotics.  Not deaf yet though. 

We had a long-planned dinner party last night.  Mr WithaY and I had been preparing for it for several days.  The food looked lovely.  The wines were well-chosen.  I'd even made a chocolate bread and butter pudding.  Delicious. 

Our mates arrived and a good time was in full swing.  I made it through the starter and half of the main course before feeling so awful*** that I had to take myself off to bed.  Half past nine on a Saturday night.  Ever the perfect hostess, me.

Gah.

I have to go into London tomorrow for a meeting, because it is one that I have already postphoned once, and really can't again.  I will go in late, come home early and hope that I don't distress too many people with my hideous, racking cough while I'm there. 



*Not that ill, truth be told, really.

**No I won't. 

***Really, really sick.  Another delightful side effect of the antibiotics.