For a while I thought I was actually going to die. For a while I thought my time was up and someone would need to break through the door of my hotel room to recover the body. I was THAT sick.
Sue and I went out for dinner tonight at a rather good Chinese restaurant where we enjoyed half a duck, some vegetables and rice. From there we went looking for a coffee and desert at a nearby cafe. While Sue had the macadamia nut tart, I went for my favourite: tiramasu.
I remember now thinking at the time the cream wasn’t as fresh as it should be. But with what I thought was my cast iron stomach, I soldiered on. We were both back in our respectives beds by eleven o’clock, and I was feeling fine.
Then at about twelve o’clock I began to feel a pain in my lower back. I put it down to the usual aches and pains of being a 44 year old man. An hour later the pain was so intense, and I felt so incredibly uncomfortable, that I went and had a shower, hoping the warm water would help ease what I thought was back pain.
An hour or so later and I had developed a high fever. Looking at myself in the mirror, all of the blood had drained away. By this time I’d also had a few more showers and had drunk a litre of water or so. I’d also placed a towel containing ice cubes on my face to help bring down the fever. I tried to vomit but could only manage a little.
For a moment I wondered if I was having a heart-attack. It was then I began to wonder if I was going to die alone in a hotel room in Melbourne. I’m a little dramatic sometimes. “They’ll find the body and instantly think it’s a drug overdose”, I thought to myself.
In a moment of common sense, I went online, typed in the symptoms, and realised it was actually probably food poisoning. I’ve never had it before. On occasion I’ve said I’ve had food poisoning, but of course everyone knows “food poisoning” is generally code for “drank too much”.
By about four o’clock I was feeling a little better, though not remarkably so. I ended up spending most of Saturday in bed drinking tea and letting my body recover from the bug that had overtaken me.
Tiramasu is no longer my favourite desert, I suspect.
2 responses to “Death in Melbourne”
What a spoiler for your weekend in Melbourne…..hope it didn’t put too much of a damper on things.
I hope you have been watching the hilights of the Royal Wedding via The Local on SVT……….a very happy couple…..stunning camera work and great shots of Stockholm.
The best medicine for you James :-)
So sorry to hear that, sounds awful – extra scary because you were interstate and not in the comfort of your own home. Glad you got over it pretty quickly. I’ve had two severe cases of food poisoning (salmonella and campylobacter – no pun intended!) I had stabbing pains in my stomach and took weeks to recover from it!
I’m hoping to go to ABBA World soon too.