[5] Throw Everything At It
I drove home. God only knows how, because I couldn’t see straight. But I made it home and in through the front door in one piece. I flopped on the sofa and started to cry. Why did this keep happening to me? Why did I feel like death was imminent, and then not die?
I went to my GP. She seemed friendly enough. A bit batty,
but friendly. Anyway, I told her my symptoms and she said it was ‘probably’
some kind of virus. She was fully hoping to send me away to miraculously
recover in a day or two.
I went away and waited for this miraculous recovery to
happen. And every morning, about ten minutes after breakfast, I felt sick, and
dizzy, and like the world was going to end for no reason at all. I tried to
throw up; nothing. I receded to the sofa to stop the world spinning. It
continued to spin. I ran through a list of all the good things I had going on;
a nice flat, a lovely fiancée, a nice new car – an estate in fact, I was busy
futureproofing my life, ready for cats and dogs and children. But as much as I
thought about things and listed things, I felt like death. I felt sad and ill
and lonely. I had no energy; here I was, a 28-year-old male in the form of my
life, unable to get off the sofa for a whole week straight. My eyes were
transitioning in to a permanent oddness, and I was left feeling like I was
looking at a distant world through a sheet of grubby cling film. I flicked the
TV between reruns of Top Gear and Sky News and burst in to tears when I
couldn’t follow the yellow ‘Breaking News’ banner scrolling across the bottom
of the screen.
Back in the doctor’s office I explained that no miracles had
happened, I was still ill and, if anything, I was worse.
Oh dear, the doctor mused out loud, and scribbled a
prescription for antibiotics, suggesting it’s best to ‘throw everything at it’
to try to get rid of it. A great theory, I thought, except the woman showed no signs of understanding what 'it' was.
Two weeks of the antibiotics did nothing, and I went back to
the doctor again, and again I ran through my symptoms. I explained that I had
brought my fiancée with me because I wouldn’t have been able to cross the road
on my own – I was convinced I would be killed by a car, I couldn’t see well
enough to step off the pavement, and I couldn’t move my aching bones fast
enough to avoid the oncoming traffic.
‘I think I’m going to send you back to work, I think if you
don’t go back now you won’t ever go back’.
Those were the doctor’s exact words.
I explained how sick I felt, how sad I felt, how everything
ached and how I felt like I was removed and desensitised from every part of
everything I did. I hadn’t felt safe to drive for three weeks thanks to the
eyes, I hadn’t felt competent enough to use a knife, or cook dinner, lest I do
something wrong and cut my hand off or burn the house down. I just didn’t seem
to be able to do anything and I felt pathetic.
‘I won’t sign you off work for any longer, you need to go
back’.
I burst in to tears again. My fiancée led me out of the room
and took me home. I broke down in her arms as soon as we got through our front
door. I told her I didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I didn’t know what
to do with myself. She cried.
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