Did You Know?
Posted By Judith on 15th January 2019
Did you know that bereavement can affect your immune system? No I didn’t either, but it seems it can and it does and it has undoubtedly affected mine. There I was thinking I was coping reasonably well whilst all the time, in the background, my own immune system was plotting against me. And boy did it mean business.
A bad cold in October, followed by a sore throat and losing my voice in November were just for starters. After a brilliant Xmas spent with my niece and her family it hit me on December 27th like an express train.
It’s hard to know where to start. A rattling chest, a hacking cough, lost voice, loss of appetite, the doctor who came to see me, (yes I was surprised too, but he didn’t stay long) asked me if I smoked (no) or had been out of the country. “Only to Huddersfield” I replied weakly, “serves me right for crossing the county line, and me a Yorkshire lass too”. He didn’t seem to have a sense of humour, I was desperately trying to hang on to mine.
I didn’t like him, his ‘bedside manner’ left a lot to be desired, but he gave me antibiotics, which is all I really wanted him for.
Was it the antibiotics or had my immune system dealt me yet another blow? Either way by now I was throwing up 3-4 times a day, I couldn’t keep anything down and could feel myself getting weaker. I spent most of the time in bed or in the bathroom. Good job I’d already written my blog for the 29/12 because I couldn’t string a sentence together.
As if to add insult to injury I was forced, for reasons I won’t go into, to be sick in the sink rather than the loo. Result? I blocked the sink up. Let me tell you, the last thing you feel like doing when you’re really ill is unblocking the sink. But to my credit I did.
In the end I decided it was the tablets and rang to ask if he would prescribe something a little less aggressive. He did, but didn’t bother to tell me, he must have thought I had ESP as well as everything else.
I eventually got the revised antibiotics and slowly, very slowly I began to improve, but at the end of the treatment the rattling chest was still rattling, so it was with a heavy heart that I embarked on a second course of antibiotics.
Then, just to make sure I wasn’t getting ideas above my station, my immune system dealt the final blow, or at least I hope it’s the final one. I came out in a rash. Not quite a penicillin allergy but not good all the same.
I finished the second lot yesterday and am certainly much better than I was. I’m hoping the itchy rash will now disappear. The rattling chest has gone but the cough hasn’t, but at least I’ve got my appetite back, though not my voice, and I should be able to have a drink now.
That first port and lemon will taste so good and the second will taste even better!
