Taking things for granted

I suppose at this time of year I'm bound to become reflective. I think back on the year gone by, look forward to the year ahead and get planning. There are some things I assume are taken care of or are guaranteed - unfortunately, that isn't always the case.

For the last few weeks things haven't been quite right with me.  Early in December I developed a cough. Initially I thought it was no big deal, everyone is ill at this time of year. I thought I would cough and sneeze for a couple of days, sleep a lot and then be right as rain. Uni would be rubbish but then I'd bounce back and get back to hardcore revision for finals. However, a week later after downing a bottle of cough mixture, drinking my body weight in lemon and ginger tea and sleeping for 14 hours a night every night I wasn't any better.




Now physician heal thyself.

I'm a final year medical student I know a thing or two about illness right? So I think about how my cough had been over the last week and concluded that there wasn't anything particularly worrying. It was probably just a cold. Besides in another week I would be going home for Christmas and if I wasn't better by then I could get some real rest and tlc there and be back to normal in no time. No need to bother a doctor.

By Christmas morning it had been two weeks since this cold started and it was getting worse not better. Of course my family were on my case to go and see my GP. Although the cough is more frequent and more painful and is disturbing my sleep more I still thought it was cold (albeit a bad one) rather than something more serious. If I have a cough/cold I have a personal rule of not going to see the GP until I've been coughing for 3 weeks... I just feel like in 99% of cases if you go sooner the doctor is going to tell me to go home sleep, drink plenty of fluids etc and it will go away. They are not going to do anything for me that I can't do myself so what's the point. Someone who is really sick could have seen the doctor in my place.

Later in the week I am forced against my will to go to the GP surgery and I see the 'Nurse Practitioner' - she doesn't know I'm nearly a doctor. She takes a history and listens to my chest and tells me what I already know - I have a cold. Most people get better in a week but it can take up to 4-6 weeks to go away.

My heart sank. 4-6 weeks. I don't want to be sick for 4-6 weeks. I have family events to go to. I have exams to revise for. It's Christmas and New Years. I can't afford to be out of action for 4-6 weeks. I didn't like what I was hearing but deep down I knew the nurse practitioner was talking sense. The problem was going to be convincing my family that. Of course they wanted me to see a real doctor.

Another week passes, I've now been sick for 3 and a half weeks. My mum manages to get me an appointment to see another GP - 'a real doctor' this time. She decides to come with me, and there is only one thing on her mind - antibiotics. According to her, I am not persuasive/talkative enough (probably true) so I let anybody walk all over me. God bless my mum, she is very well meaning and of course she's worried that I'm really sick. The problem is, I don't think antibiotics are actually going to help and neither does the doctor I see. Nevertheless, we leave with the desired prescriptions (my mum is very persuasive) and I am being forced to take antibiotics that are probably not going to do anything.

Needless to say this is not how I envisioned spending my December, Christmas, New Years Eve and early January. I had plans to spend time with family, catch up with old friends and do lots of revision but now I feel like my life is on hold for a stupid viral infection.

On a day to day basis my health is not something I think about. I realise now that it's something that I ought to be more thankful for because without it ... well, life is a bit rubbish.