Bed Rest And Penicillin

I really appreciate the kindness and thoughts of Alison, The Dotteral, and cb who have all commented on my post of yesterday about how I hate having a cold. I can usually cope reasonably well with such things but I seem to have been knocked for six this time, so much so that I just had to go to see my GP this morning. And it seems that it was just as well that I did, for what I thought was just a simple cold is not so simple after all.

I knew by yesterday evening that I was getting worse, so I went to my surgery's website and booked an appointment with my GP. When I went in to see him, I think he thought it was because I was still feeling very low with depression as he had told me on Monday that if I was still feeling bad on Friday I was to come back to see him. But when I told him about the golf balls in my throat and the cotton wool in my ears he realised that I was there about quite a different matter.

He looked at my throat, peered into my ears, then listened to my chest, and the diagnosis is a host of infections. The throat and ear infections are almost certainly linked and are viral, however, the chest infection and bronchitis seem to be something separate and almost certainly bacterial so it is a course of penicillin for that. There were also instructions to go home, not to go out for at least 48 hours, to take paracetamol every 4 hours for the fever, and that it would be better if I went to bed so that I could keep warm and sleep whenever I felt like it.

So, when I left the surgery I went to the chemist to get the prescription dealt with, to the corner shop to get some more tissues and some sweets to suck to help with the soreness in my throat (I don't think that you can beat a boiled sweet for helping in these circumstances) and then home to get back into bed. I am armed with my laptop so that I can keep in touch with the world, the box of tissues, plenty of drinks and a couple of books, and I will rest as I have been told to and only get up for calls of nature and to get myself the occasional sustenance.

That is the biggest problem with being on my own. There is no-one to look after me and to take care of my needs when I am ill. So I will just have to hope that the antibiotics take care of what will probably be the worst of the infections and that bed rest, a warm environment, and time will take care of the rest. I'm feeling so ill that I don't even have the energy to be depressed about it all.