"I have given instructions that I be informed every
time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the
middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves
instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle
of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will
be peace."
-- Golda Meir

I managed to make it thru today at work - barely. I definitely sounded like I was spreading plague with my awful deep congested cough. I definitely would not have wanted to sit next to me. And I knew it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

The awful strength of addiction (and the morbidly ironic amusement) was brought home to me as I was leaving to go home. I had managed to fairly painlessly reduce a 40+/day cigarette habit down to about 4 (yes, really!) a day. It was working, I was holding at 4 or so a day, month after month. Not even buying any, just using up the American cigarettes my sons brought over before Xmas. Then this -illness- hit me on Friday and I was just too ill to even consider smoking or eating or even drinking coffee. Basically made it through the weekend sipping hot sweet mint tea or spiced black tea.

So I'm back at work today and people are going out for a smoke break and even the thought of it sends shudders of horror through me. And I'm thinking, wow! it's been 4 days since I smoked so maybe I might as well not start back again. The day passed and I was getting my coat on to go upstairs and wait for the cab to take me home (I'm really still too ill to be at work, no way could I make it thru my usual 2+ hour commute each way) - and I find myself thinking - not bad, I have enough time before the cab comes to smoke a cigarette. And a part of my mind was reacting with pleasure looking forward to it! And I thought, am I nuts? With me still hacking away like Typhoid Mary? And why not just give it up anyway since I haven't smoked for 5 days now. And then I thought, yeah but I still have a full pack of Virginia Slims Lights in my pocket! And that mattered to me.

This is nuts. This is addiction. Luckily I am far too ill to seriously consider smoking anything at the moment, no matter my addicted brain's yearnings. My body is digging its heels in saying OUCH! No! HURTS!

Back to sipping Pellegrino water, for me.

I had no idea that ...Land of Hope and Glory was sung to the Pomp and Circumstance tune. Yes, Pomp and Circumstance, known to most of us Americans as "The Graduation March".

1911 performance sung by Clara Butt from www.firstworldwar.com

The tune is much better used for graduations. It was first used at a graduation in 1905 when Yale invited its composer, Elgar to accept an honorary doctorate of music. It quickly spread to become the ubiquitous choice it is today.

I'm working from home today - feeling better than I did this weekend but then, I felt close to death much of the weekend so it doesn't take very much to say "feeling better" than that.

Anyway the fever seems to slowly be drifting down, the congestion is slowly breaking up , and my voice is starting to slowly return although I sound exactly like a croaking frog. I even managed to keep down a cup of coffee and 2 slices of toast this morning. Not bad considering that's the first food I've been able to manage since Friday night.

Of course, in the US, I would have called the doctor Friday to say I was feeling worse and it felt like my cold/flu was slipping over into bronchitis (because by this point in my life, I do know when that happens) and he'd have called in a prescription for antibiotics for me. I'd have started them Friday night so I'd never have gotten as sick as I did and I would have been up and lively by Sunday and back to normal (and back to work) on Monday morning.

But no, this is the UK where a call to the local NHS health practice got me the cold comfort of a suggested stop in to see the nurse - NEXT WEDNESDAY! When I asked for a prescription for antibiotics to halt the rapidly increasing infection, it was pointed out they don't believe antibiotics are necessary. Really! The NHS is psychic and able to tell this over the phone. So despite the NHS taking taxes out of my wages every week they are good for NOTHING. This is soviet socialised medicine at its best. NHS - the 3rd world standard for heath care.

It's not just me, either. The NHS decided modern medicines were too expensive so they would roll back prescriptions to older, cheaper medications. The promise was that if the changed prescription didn't work or had bad side effects they would restore your proper prescription. (Didn't medical experimentation on non-volunteers get addressed at Nuremberg?) So my husband's medication was changed to some vaguely related but totally different chemical. Too bad because it not only didn't work, it had horrendous side effects. When he informed his doctor of this, she switched him back to his original medication - but only for 1 prescription, no renewal. That was just to give the NHS time to come up with some other cheap alternative chemical for him. So he tried the 2nd cheap NHS stuff and again had major bad side effects. Now, in the US, we'd have been sitting in a good lawyer's office by this point and the issue would be settled because harm was knowingly done. But would the NHS accept that their 2 idiotic attempts to save a small amount of money were a failure? No, today we were informed they want to try a 3rd strange chemical. Obviously I told my husband to just say no and get a private prescription. What this country needs is a good major class action lawsuit - no, actually it needs a lot of major class action lawsuits. ::sigh:: No, even that won't help. People get the government they deserve. And it follows they get the institutions they deserve as well.

Readers in the US, no matter how bad you think the US heath care system is, it's heaven compared to the UK.

I am sure I will be able to find a private doctor who is willing and able to give me the quality level of health care I'm used to in the US. But it will cost me and it will be more than it cost in the US. No question about it.

I shall now return to my medieval level medical care - crawling into bed under a pile of quilts.

I spent almost all yesterday in bed, sweating and ill. This cold or flu turned into bronchitis and breathing was painful and difficult. Same through the night and all of today. I'm just drinking clear fluids like mint tea or sparkling cranberry juice.

Thanks, NHS - you run a perfect 3rd world country medical system. They tell me antibiotics are unnecessary. So now I've got a full blown 2ndary infection. No private doctors with weekend hours out this way or I'd pay and get proper medical treatment.

I haven't eaten at all since Friday night so I need to think about that