I am less than stellar at being sick.

The first thing to go is my sense of humour. Even if no-one else laughs at something I’ve said, I can make myself laugh. Not when I’m sick. It is a sorry state of affairs.

I miss it when it goes because sometimes things are still funny in my head but I’m too tired to share it. Then this goes too and I know then that I’m really, really sick. Things aren’t funny anymore. 

How can this happen in a world of fairly continuous funny things?

Second thing to go is my patience. Normally it takes a while for anything to really annoy me. Not when I’m sick especially if this is coupled with being tired. I think others around me probably miss my patience and its sister, positivity, more than I do because at this stage of being ill, I don’t even care. This is when I’m really not well at all. 

Things aren’t funny and I don’t care.

These two things combined turn me into something not quite human and not very nice to be around (not saying I’m always a delight when I’m healthy but you get the idea. Naturally I am funnier then than when I’m ill). I will call her “Sense of Humourless Pain In The Butt”. It’s not just the runny nose, the coughing, sneezing and spluttering, it’s the inability to use my mouth as a filter for my brain. That is, if my mouth works at all.

It’s at this stage when others around me who may not have realised I was sick, are now aware that something is wrong. I am not myself. My brain is trying to reboot unsuccessfully and seems to be hooking into some other random computer that doesn’t appear to know that it is meant to be me. Words come out of my mouth in some weird order that they don’t usually form. It’s not usually a nice order. It’s disorder. Generally coherent but still disorder. It does not sound like me.

For the past week, I’ve been fighting a cold and the cold has been winning. I’d like to say that it offered a fair fight but I was already coming from a handicap of a lack of sleep and inadequate food. 

The food was partially my fault, the lack of sleep was not.

The food was a change from my high protein, carbohydrate diet of the expedition (rice, beans and either fish or zebu for each lunch or dinner and the occasional goat, duck or chicken instead for the past six weeks following rice with condensed milk for breakfast. As a treat on Sundays, we’d sometimes have zebu or vegetarian pizza) to one that suddenly had more vegetables in it again, as well as some fats and grapes. 

Welcome back red wine and cheese. 

I have missed you.

The lack of sleep was due to traveling back to the capital, Tana, as part of the expedition group and my tendency to wake multiple times in an evening when in a new place. Each morning we have been up, ready to go and in the van at about 6am and not going to bed until around 10pm. Unfortunately this has been due to the arrival time in each town along and the length of time it takes to order and receive meals in some of these places.

My voice changed.

I sounded like my alter ego, Dusky Sweetlips, retired 1970s porn star. I could run a telephone line and make a lot of money if I didn’t burst out laughing part the way through my spiel. In any case, this could only be done until I hit the “not enough sleep phase” since I’m not sure I’d have the patience for it otherwise. For a good time, call 1800-DUSKY.

I was so sick this time that I even took some tablets to give me two night’s sleep without waking up in the middle of each one. It temporarily helped since they did stop me sneezing in the middle of the night and waking myself up.

I am now back to being myself again and my nose has stopped trying to run away to find a plumber. I still have a slight cough. It’s enough to be annoying but not enough for me to see a doctor. All is right with the world.

My sense of humour has returned. 

Now I have red wine, cheese and I can make myself laugh. 

I am human again.

I am me again. 

* Thanks to The Killers for the title to this post. Here’s their new single, The Man.

Note: Thanks to everyone that survived the trip back to Tana with me. I will look into getting t-shirts printed for all of you in either pink, turquoise or yellow saying “I survived” across the front and “You’re welcome” across the back. It may or may not feature a cartoon stick figure with curly hair and a smile. Perhaps also with some diving gear. And a lemur.