Day 193 - my tonsilitus

How sick am I?



So, its saturday. I still need a job. what do I do? I GO TO THE BEACH, of course. yep, every saturday the hostel puts on a 'trip' down to Coogee Beach (not as big as bondi, but a bit more personal), where they buy as many budget sausages and burgers as they can and make use of the open-air free BBQ stands next to the beach. Its great. Its free, its hot and there's a shed load of fun people. No complaints.





The day progressed almost without incident. Unfortunately, whilst playing frisbee with a swedish dude, he managed to hit some guy in the face with the frisbee. Now, any other day of the year, the guy would have been a bit annoyed and shouted at us for playing on the pavement, but not today. Oh no. Instead, his 3 female friends started howling in shock and he's bent over almost to the floor clutching his nose. I run over, apologising (I didn't even throw the damn frisbee), to be told that he has (just yesterday) had NOSE SURGERY. And right they were - his nose is still bandaged up and he's in a severe amount of pain. I apologise again, run back to the BBQ to grab some serviettes to mop up the blood and run back, to find that he's "ok" although clearly in shock. I love how this stuff only ever happens to me. Swedish dude laughs it off and we decide to stop playing.





Much later Suzi and Minnie turn up, so when everyone else is going back to the hostel I decide to join them for a drink. And this is where is started. We're sat eating fish and chips, in the scorching 5pm sunshine, and I'm shivering like its a winter day. Suzi and Minnie are convinced - its sunstroke. I'm arguing that its not, but they know the signs and they're pretty convincing. I down 2 pints of water, but its making the shivering worse. I'm giddy. I have been drinking all day (of course I have), but its not that.



So, I make my excuses and head off towards home. On the bus I can't read my book or listen to my iPod - everything is weird. Someone asks if I'm ok, and I just shrug them off. My teeth are chattering and I'm delirious. And the bus journey is dragging on towards 35 minutes when I finally get off and trot to the hostel. I see Sam and Jason in reception, about to go out for some drinks in town, and explain that I'm proper ill, so they point me towards my bed and tell me they'll see me later. And I jump into bed, wrapping up nice and warm.

It seems I would be spending the next 4 days in my bed. This wasn't sunstroke. This was acute tonsilitus. I could go on for ages about how awful the next 36 hours were for me. But we've all been ill. I had those nightmares where you're tiny and the bed is massive, like an ocean, and you're being crushed by the weight of the duvet. I had this weird recurring thing where I was trying to find a skyscraper in the city. I could hear myself mumbling and making noises, in an 8-bed dorm, but couldn't control them.

And then Sam came home. drunk. and flipping out. She's throwing wet towels on me in my delirium. Apparently I'm burning up (my bed sheets are soaked with sweat, but I'm still shivering like mad). She's never felt a temperature like this. She's trying to phone an ambulance, but I'm telling her to wait til morning. Carmen is in the kitchen looking for phone numbers of call-out-doctors. The whole dorm is awake, and I'm so out-of-it all I can say is "please go to bed" over and over again.

She does. And I have a hideous night's sleep. I start vomiting at 4am. Then again at 8am (this time pure paracetamol and water - its still fizzing when it comes out). And then back to the nightmares. Its rubbish.



Sam's up early to reapply wet towels to my sweating skin and by midday she's got me up, dressed me and is bundling me into a cab to the doctors surgery (literally 3 blocks away). A 20 minute wait and 30 quid later I have a prescription for penicillin and a diagnosis of acute tonsilitus (there's a lot going around, apparently).



Not much to report from the next 48 hours. I spent the lot in bed. Too weak to leave the hostel. A trip to the supermarket nearly kills me, and drinking hot sweet tea in the tv room is my only respite from the suffocation of my 8-bed dorm room. But 48 hours pass, and the antibiotics kick in. And before long, I'm still whinging but feeling much better. Wednesday evening and we all get invited over to Ricky and Tracy's flat to watch some teen flick about a skater-girl who becomes a gynamstics star, and despite still being a little contagious, we cram 8 of us into a tiny living room and laugh solidly for 4 hours. i even manage to eat my first solids in 3 days in the form of some McDonalds chicken nuggets.

Sam and I have kinda fallen on our feet when it comes to friends in Sydney. There's a group of 8 kids who've been travelling together for ages, and we've all become mates at the same time. They're pretty special, and good fun to be around, so we're hanging out with them quite a bit. Its nice to have some solid friends, rather than the continual transit friendships that get made so easily. There's something more secure about these guys - they're here to stay. Its good.

Anyway, its Thursday, and I'm alive again. Everything's normal. The antibiotics are stong and make me go dizzy for about 10 minutes after taking them. but aside from that, I'm out and about, buying christmas presents (yeah, like I'm rich) from the market and cooking proper food for the first time in days. I'm not drinking a drop, but agree to go out with Sam tonight to Indie night (again!). She's been texting Rachael (one of her ex-colleague's best friends) who's just moved here and wants to go out tonight. And before long I'm rounding up dave, tom (from brasil) and jason and they're coming with us too. Before I know it, I'm drinking beer, getting drunk, destroying the healing effect of my antibiotics but having a lot of fun. And to cap it all, Dave is the perfect indie poser, pouting at the camera at every oppurtunity. sick.