On being sick:

I can’t get back to sleep, I’m still as sick as a dog, and I know that the title of this post doesn’t make sense – my apologies, as I am still somewhat incoherent due to this stupid flu.

I have taken my meds, and slept (or at least attempted to sleep) the past 4 days. My body gets all strange during a flu episode, I will wake up in the morning with a fever, sore throat and a devil of a headache that gets worse and worse usually until the afternoon, then it will get a little bit better in the evenings which I’m guessing is because that is when the medication really kicks in. So for me to suddenly wake up now at 12 am feeling a bit better but  bored out of my mind, turning the TV on only to find nothing good  left me with no choice but to write all the things on my mind.

I went to my General Practitioner yesterday and he wanted to take blood samples to check if I had anything but flu as I have been resting and taking medications rest for three days but nothing had worked. So he did draw some of my blood but not before he turned my arm black and blue. You see, he couldn’t find my veins (yes, I am that fat now), and had to torture me with his needles on three tries and three different locations until he found a vein that enabled him to draw enough blood for all kinds of tests that he wanted me to take. Like they said, the proof is in the pudding, the proof of my torture is in the picture below, which is not pretty.

I have some other bruises from the blood drawing attempts but I think this is enough to give you a rough idea of how it hurt.

I showed the pic to mr. husband, and the sweet man that he is, he felt all upset and guilty, and he seriously considered to go home earlier because he couldn’t stand the thought of me being sick and alone. Of course I said he shouldn’t, after all I miss him heaps, but I still like being not having to cater to anyone’s needs but my own.

Doc gave me a certificate to rest at home until the end of the week and he also told me to check back with him on Friday or early next week for my blood test results. I don’t want to spend the whole week at home, so I asked him whether I can go back to work earlier if I felt better before Friday, he said that if I wake up without a fever and feel better, I can go to work but I still had to take it easy. I think he is worried I have something other than flu, but I’ll worry about that when I have to.

Will see tomorrow morning whether or not I wake up with a fever, if I still have it, I will rest another day, if not then I will go to work. Hopefully my body is listening to my brain, because my brain is yelling at it to get its act together and get healthy. I’m so fucking bored at home alone. Starting to feel all Cobain-y, bored, lonely and depressed. Shit!

On male ejaculation to ease nasal congestion:

Jakartass emailed me today (or was it yesterday? I forget) and gave me a link he thought would make a good post for me (I think it’s because my blog is a bit slutty smutty). The link is of an article by Mr. Ben Goldacre in the Guardian,

Important and timely news from the Journal of Medical Hypotheses this week: ejaculating could be “a potential treatment of nasal congestion in mature males”. My reason for bothering you with this will become clear later. The first thing to note is that this is not an entirely ludicrous idea, but it is a tenuous one.

Most decongestant pills work by increasing the activity in the “sympathetic nervous system”, which is involved in lots of largely automatic things in the body, such as sweating, blood pressure, and pupil size, as well as the “fight or flight” mechanism. More activitity in the sympathetic system causes the vessels of the nasal mucosa to constrict, reducing their volume, so clearing the blockage.

The argument from Dr Sina Zarrintan runs: “The emission phase of ejaculation is under the control of the sympathetic nervous system … ejaculation will stimulate adrenergic receptors … and stimulation of your adrenergic receptors gives you relief from your cold.”

It’s a chain of reasoning that would make a nutritionist blush, and has already been responded to in a letter, entitled Ejaculation as a treatment for nasal congestion in men is inconvenient, unreliable and potentially hazardous. The letter explains that ejaculation increases blood pressure and heart rate, increases androgens, which could increase prostate cancer, and so on.

Pay attention to the sentence in bold. Jakartass pondered about the significance of that sentence. Me, I just wondered what the relevance of that particular sentence is to the whole nasal congestion thing. What does ejaculation have to do with nutrition, unless the discharge gets .. [fill in whatever verb you think I'm thinking of here] ..

Just as the mature male population of the world are all excited at the thought of having a legitimate reason to ask their nurses to help them ‘ease their nasal congestion’ they are told that doing so will increase the chance of prostate cancer. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

But I guess for some, ‘eased nasal congestion’  is worth the risk of prostate cancer. I will not share this news to mr. husband as I know he will most definitely use this reasoning everytime his err.. pipe is congested. And as much as I need good nutrition, I would not make my nutritionist blush by discussing this option to increase nutrition intake with him.

Again, I apologize for writing so incoherently, as I am not only suffering from a nasty flu but also a very short attention span. But maybe some people will read this and think that this totally makes sense ??

Oooh..  look at the pretty light!! BEAUTIFUUUUUULLL!!!!

Where’s my nasal congestion easer? Damn it, I know I have it here somewhere.

I’m hungry.. I need some food.

I think I’m gonna go to sleep now … zzzzzzz….