My Flu And How I learned It Wasn't Darth Covid-19.
It may seem that I'm offering a piece of humility after my confident posts that the Covid Virus narrative seemed to
be nothing more than just the mainstream media driving the public into an environment where politicians have
become semi-medical pandits and the media are crows on telegraph poles cawing that the storm is heading your
way for ratings.
I'm not doing that, I just wish to offer my perception of what the last four weeks witnessed of my struggle with flu.
I can guardedly say what occurred was catching a disease that I haven't entertained for over ten-to fifteen years,
a flu that invaded my body the same way its cousins had previously.
I live in the UK and have been astounded by the contrary reports that the regular television news delivers.
But those elected to govern ignored the dire commentaries of a politician's statement and suggestive negative
off-the-cuff remarks of news Presenters in favour of not having some Journalist root around in their dustbins and
possibly discover their county-lines drug-dealer.
Levity will no doubt surface from time to time in my essay because I refuse to lower my standards to the same MSM
that daily reminds the public that leaving the house will kill Grandma and that the numerous vaccines are safe for
pregnant women to use.
Oh, and wearing twelve masks will avoid the Coof and someone call Fauci might tell you the truth if he's in a good mood.
...............................
One Monday, a letter arrived from the National Health Service telling me that the seasonal flu vaccine is now available for
people of my age. Cheeky bastards...! I'm only... Oh wait, I'm sixty. That one crept up one me.
After tearing my name and address out of the single sheet, I dumped it into my recycling bag like the good public servant
I am and wondered why the missive hadn't advertised the new cures for Covid-19. Seasonal flu...? I thought this latest killer
would've out-trumped the regular disease and stood over the annual battered contagious respiratory illness like Clubber Lang
of the Rocky movies.
No, this was an invite to stand in a line with fellow old-people and ponder why the young believe we smell of piss. Along with
asking the dark-skinned nurse if she remembered the Second World War, we would peel off the three cardigans and await
the perennial cold needle of remedy. No red lettering stating Covid was walking the streets and will take anyone who acquires
information about coronavirus from the internet and no reminder that dancing nurses on Tik-Tok were merely venting trauma.
The torn letter laid against an empty packet of fish-fingers was my RSVP.
Tuesday evening, I retired to bed feeling the faint inkling of shivers in my legs. It seems the flu may have sniffed-out the journey
of the letter and realised that the ignorant thug-turned-loving-husband had allowed his body to wane. Fucking age, which crackpot
scientist invented that dumb idea?!
I awoke on Wednesday morning feeling like I hadn't slept soundly and I owed the night a few hours of slumber. Wednesdays are
when I visit my cantankerous ninety-six year-old Mother-in-law who was still cheery that her own injected barrier from the televised
plague had brought her no after-effects. My wife drops me off and never accompanies me for the visit due to past fallings-out.
Sitting in my wife's car, I started to sweat. My breathing didn't become laboured because of a fever, I started to pant because I was
too hot. My eyesight blurred and I felt like there was a chance of vomiting. As we left my road, my wife -who knows that I don't suffer
illness in such a dramatic manner, turned the car around and sped back to our driveway.
Becoming stationary, I kicked the car door open and fell out onto a small patch of grass that I'm still waiting to cut. I was soaked with
sweat on a British winter's morning and sleep's debt-collector was giggling in my ear. I stumbled into the garage and ignoring pranging
my head on a shelf. I slumped-up against a bench and wondered whether the disease-world's version of Genghis Khan had rode in with
devilment on its mind.
Before I continue, I have to say I'm retired and have been for almost ten years. This is important when attempting to appreciate my
perception of my situation. I have no need to worry about work or being prepared for work. I don't worry about the ability to paying bills
or even whether I can take an overseas holiday at a whim.
What I mean is only small things like keeping my garden neat or attempting to create a new yarn for the website comes to mind when
I ruminate and make no mistake, I accepted this luxury with the gratefulness of someone who appreciates a friend who demanded a
turnaround of one's car-crash lifestyle.
She sleeps next to me every night.
Act III found me laid fully-clothed on my bed and sucking in air in pretence that I was somehow cooling my temperature. Sleep flashed
her underwear from beneath her short skirt, but wouldn't place her calming hand on my forehead and tell me a better place awaited.
I switched breathing through my mouth to inhaling via my nose and the sweat-stained rim of my baseball hat told me I was slowly cooling
down.
Glancing at the clock, I saw it was 9.45am as I slowly undressed and climbed into bed, I hoped maybe the quietness would bring sleep.
As the evening approached, I squinted from beneath the cap I'd forgotten to take off and reached for the television's remote-control.
I now believe this was one of the biggest mistakes I'd made in all of this ordeal. The BBC's ten o'clock news appeared on the screen and
launched immediately into offering the public some hope with vague statistics of the famous vaccine's termination of the Covid rampage.
Flicking through the channels, I found some poorly-researched programme on Medieval history of England. I closed my eyes and waited
to pass-out again. The television continued to explain something that happened centuries ago through modern eyes and I wondered if
access to a cell-phone would be mentioned to assist the woes of Henry VIII. It's always Henry VIII because he treated women badly.
Making sure I didn't need anything, my wife retired to bed and after switching the TV off, I heard her sleeping peacefully. What was about
to occur would be a blueprint for the next three weeks. My back began to ache, wherever I moved my torso, it cried out in pain.
"Stand up!" a voice said in my cotton-wooled head and I clambered out of bed with heavy breathing. I looked at the glowing clock on my
wife's side of the bed, it was 23.15pm.
I stood in the darkness and wondered what I should do. I wasn't tired -except I was really. I couldn't lay down because of the strange pains
that slipped away when I stood up and even though I felt chilly, it seemed like a false coldness that flu often convinces the body with.
...............................
A little side-note was when I was around eighteen years-old, I caught a flu and living in a small house with many sisters, my convalescence
took place in the downstairs front-room which had become my bedroom. Sometime in the early evening, I was wrestling with the fever
beneath heavy covers and large coats that belonged to long-dead relatives, when I heard a voice that would unknowingly visit me again
in my future.
1978, I was doped-up the eyeballs in a plain-looking room surrounded by braided military personnel. Whatever these generals were
witnessing, it involved myself being debased and not playing the part of a usual ostentatious young man who enjoyed fighting.
(Who'd have thought such a scenario would reappear in one of BIAD's fictional recounts of his past, huh?!)
With a strange background noise of constant mumbling, one craggy General stepped forward and growled "Let's keep him in there
for a couple of hours more". Me, all side-burns and shaven head, heard the order and decided that enough was enough.
Ignoring the ghostly forms before me, I tore open my bedroom door and staggered towards the light in the only other room where
there was no bed. The living-room.
Breathing deeply in my seventies underpants, I groggily warned my mother and two sisters that 'you're not fuckin' keeping me
in for a couple of hours'!
Their shocked looks were enough to say they agreed, so I then went back to bed and dumped the disease sometime in the early hours.
Hallucinations, something that took me a week to realise.
...............................
But that was then and this is now. There I stood, unable to think properly due to a constant mumbling in my head and the threat that if
I returned to my bed, my spine would twist itself into knots of agony. I slumped to the carpet and hoped my wife didn't awaken.
After a few minutes, I began a routine that would stay with me for almost three weeks.
I'd sleep normally until 11.39pm-ish. With my back aching, I'd rise and go to a small room where my old computer sat. I would have to
wear my wife's reading spectacles to see what was happening on the internet and then after thirty minutes, I would enter a bedroom
that my son used to sleep in. (He owns his own house these days.)
Laid on the rarely-used bed in the redecorated room, I stare out of the window at the night whilst twisting for a comfortable spot on the
cold linen. Sometime after 2.00am, I'd rise and return to the computer room and sit in a chair gazing like a zombie at nothing but gloom.
The mumbling never stopped and there were no quiet moments where I could possibly interpose my own thoughts and musings. I was an
audience in my head and had no say on what was happening to me. Breathing like an old man sitting the dark and his pyjamas, I listened
to the inane ramblings that made no sense.
Then back to the son's ex-bedroom and repeat the writhing. At 5,00am, I'd listen to a small radio via an ear-piece and wonder if the
night-owls who ring into the radio station would mention a similar crazy schedule. Time ticked slowly in the star-less glue and any
interests of creating stories or art seemed to belong to someone else. My brain was full, thank you.
Dawn would prompt me to return to my own bedroom and faking a resting body, I would wait until 6.30am and then prepare breakfast.
Hot coffee and toast in bed, my wife was surprised at my recovery and looking proud, I wondered how to explain what was really happening.
It was the first day of the second week that she discovered my twilight timetable. Standing in the dark, I attempted to explain my condition
with some form of rationale. It was like a set of instructions, advice that helped to not upset her own sleep and keep me from wriggling in
our bed. I would recover as daylight came and any sleep needed could be captured during the day under the heading of 'getting better'.
Switching the bedside lamp on, my smart wife looked at me in silence. "We'll talk in the morning" she said and the shadowy bedroom
returned with the blessed glowing clock reminding me that I was late for my walk. In those lonely hours, I felt ashamed like I'd taken
a mistress who mocks my need to be normal again.
The next day, I told her how it seemed I was at the mercy of these nightly directives and that I couldn't even offer an alternative considering
the imaginary pain that threatened to chew on my back. After assuring me that every day we would go for a long walk, my wife said she
would formulate a plan to bring me back from the stupor I shuffled around in and the prison of a coward who couldn't think for himself.
Love can kiss, but there are teeth behind those caring lips.
Midnight...nearly and the voice strongly proposed that I should avoid the certain pain in my spine by getting with program.
The mumbling -the non-descript voices that always accompanied the mysterious chief were there and it would be the end of the third
week before I realised who these vague vocals were.
Remember my flu at eighteen...? In my parents house, the television was always on. From morning 'till night, the three-channel set churned
out it's limited programmes. Today, the only time the TV in the bedroom went on was just before I nodded off and went into my usual
caroling that some call snoring.
The bastard-stuff was following me down to where the later nightmare was waiting. A clue that I had to remember.
"Stay in bed, I want you to stay in bed" my wife ordered as I sneakily began the procedure of being up all night.
"My back is killing me" I whimpered and yet, lay back down and felt the care she was delivering. I made it until 2.30am before
I silently rose and followed the routine.
Up to this point, I'd hardly eaten. I would drink water, bottles of the stuff and moan in my daytime haze that I just wasn't hungry.
That was when the fruit appeared and I was surprised at my appetite to eat it. Oranges, pears and bananas became my staple diet
and considering I came from a world of easily-made fried-food, I gobbled them down with relish. Fuck you flu.
Then I noticed something on one of my half-hearted wanderings of the night. The voice that would tell me to get up became faint
as my wife would sleepily counter the order. The stumbling out of the bedroom became shorter and the routine would be abrupt as
I approached the spare room.
I'd turn and go back to my own bed and ignoring the pain in my lower-back, I'd wake later to see it was five o'clock in the morning.
We were winning.
As of right now, I have a five-inch high band of numbness around my stomach and lower back. My eyesight has returned and I don't
need spectacles to type this. I've slept normally until last night when something very strange -although BIAD-like in it's oddity, occurred.
I awoke in the darkness and felt confident that I'd drop back off to sleep now that the mumblings had long gone and the TV remained
switched off when I retired to bed. But just for old-time's sake, I'll take a look at the clock and make a wager.
If there's a '4' in the displayed number, it would be a sign that my ordeal was over. Lifting myself on my elbow, I peered across the
sleeping form of the woman who can chase flu-induced nightmares away. The eldritch digits told me it was 4.44am.
I smiled, turned over and went back to sleep.
Maybe the medal-adorned General is still out there with his horde of muttering assembly and maybe he believes I should endure a couple
of hours more under his command. But the woman who wields real power, that energy of love we all aspire to attain, said not today
General... not on my watch.
Thank you too for the encouragement.
It may seem that I'm offering a piece of humility after my confident posts that the Covid Virus narrative seemed to
be nothing more than just the mainstream media driving the public into an environment where politicians have
become semi-medical pandits and the media are crows on telegraph poles cawing that the storm is heading your
way for ratings.
I'm not doing that, I just wish to offer my perception of what the last four weeks witnessed of my struggle with flu.
I can guardedly say what occurred was catching a disease that I haven't entertained for over ten-to fifteen years,
a flu that invaded my body the same way its cousins had previously.
I live in the UK and have been astounded by the contrary reports that the regular television news delivers.
But those elected to govern ignored the dire commentaries of a politician's statement and suggestive negative
off-the-cuff remarks of news Presenters in favour of not having some Journalist root around in their dustbins and
possibly discover their county-lines drug-dealer.
Levity will no doubt surface from time to time in my essay because I refuse to lower my standards to the same MSM
that daily reminds the public that leaving the house will kill Grandma and that the numerous vaccines are safe for
pregnant women to use.
Oh, and wearing twelve masks will avoid the Coof and someone call Fauci might tell you the truth if he's in a good mood.
...............................
One Monday, a letter arrived from the National Health Service telling me that the seasonal flu vaccine is now available for
people of my age. Cheeky bastards...! I'm only... Oh wait, I'm sixty. That one crept up one me.
After tearing my name and address out of the single sheet, I dumped it into my recycling bag like the good public servant
I am and wondered why the missive hadn't advertised the new cures for Covid-19. Seasonal flu...? I thought this latest killer
would've out-trumped the regular disease and stood over the annual battered contagious respiratory illness like Clubber Lang
of the Rocky movies.
No, this was an invite to stand in a line with fellow old-people and ponder why the young believe we smell of piss. Along with
asking the dark-skinned nurse if she remembered the Second World War, we would peel off the three cardigans and await
the perennial cold needle of remedy. No red lettering stating Covid was walking the streets and will take anyone who acquires
information about coronavirus from the internet and no reminder that dancing nurses on Tik-Tok were merely venting trauma.
The torn letter laid against an empty packet of fish-fingers was my RSVP.
Tuesday evening, I retired to bed feeling the faint inkling of shivers in my legs. It seems the flu may have sniffed-out the journey
of the letter and realised that the ignorant thug-turned-loving-husband had allowed his body to wane. Fucking age, which crackpot
scientist invented that dumb idea?!
I awoke on Wednesday morning feeling like I hadn't slept soundly and I owed the night a few hours of slumber. Wednesdays are
when I visit my cantankerous ninety-six year-old Mother-in-law who was still cheery that her own injected barrier from the televised
plague had brought her no after-effects. My wife drops me off and never accompanies me for the visit due to past fallings-out.
Quote:From the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention website:
Flu Symptoms
Influenza (flu) can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death.
Flu is different from a cold. Flu usually comes on suddenly. People who have flu often feel some or all of these symptoms:
fever* or feeling feverish/chills
cough
sore throat
runny or stuffy nose
muscle or body aches
headaches
fatigue (tiredness)
some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
*It’s important to note that not everyone with flu will have a fever.
Sitting in my wife's car, I started to sweat. My breathing didn't become laboured because of a fever, I started to pant because I was
too hot. My eyesight blurred and I felt like there was a chance of vomiting. As we left my road, my wife -who knows that I don't suffer
illness in such a dramatic manner, turned the car around and sped back to our driveway.
Becoming stationary, I kicked the car door open and fell out onto a small patch of grass that I'm still waiting to cut. I was soaked with
sweat on a British winter's morning and sleep's debt-collector was giggling in my ear. I stumbled into the garage and ignoring pranging
my head on a shelf. I slumped-up against a bench and wondered whether the disease-world's version of Genghis Khan had rode in with
devilment on its mind.
Before I continue, I have to say I'm retired and have been for almost ten years. This is important when attempting to appreciate my
perception of my situation. I have no need to worry about work or being prepared for work. I don't worry about the ability to paying bills
or even whether I can take an overseas holiday at a whim.
What I mean is only small things like keeping my garden neat or attempting to create a new yarn for the website comes to mind when
I ruminate and make no mistake, I accepted this luxury with the gratefulness of someone who appreciates a friend who demanded a
turnaround of one's car-crash lifestyle.
She sleeps next to me every night.
Act III found me laid fully-clothed on my bed and sucking in air in pretence that I was somehow cooling my temperature. Sleep flashed
her underwear from beneath her short skirt, but wouldn't place her calming hand on my forehead and tell me a better place awaited.
I switched breathing through my mouth to inhaling via my nose and the sweat-stained rim of my baseball hat told me I was slowly cooling
down.
Glancing at the clock, I saw it was 9.45am as I slowly undressed and climbed into bed, I hoped maybe the quietness would bring sleep.
As the evening approached, I squinted from beneath the cap I'd forgotten to take off and reached for the television's remote-control.
I now believe this was one of the biggest mistakes I'd made in all of this ordeal. The BBC's ten o'clock news appeared on the screen and
launched immediately into offering the public some hope with vague statistics of the famous vaccine's termination of the Covid rampage.
Flicking through the channels, I found some poorly-researched programme on Medieval history of England. I closed my eyes and waited
to pass-out again. The television continued to explain something that happened centuries ago through modern eyes and I wondered if
access to a cell-phone would be mentioned to assist the woes of Henry VIII. It's always Henry VIII because he treated women badly.
Making sure I didn't need anything, my wife retired to bed and after switching the TV off, I heard her sleeping peacefully. What was about
to occur would be a blueprint for the next three weeks. My back began to ache, wherever I moved my torso, it cried out in pain.
"Stand up!" a voice said in my cotton-wooled head and I clambered out of bed with heavy breathing. I looked at the glowing clock on my
wife's side of the bed, it was 23.15pm.
I stood in the darkness and wondered what I should do. I wasn't tired -except I was really. I couldn't lay down because of the strange pains
that slipped away when I stood up and even though I felt chilly, it seemed like a false coldness that flu often convinces the body with.
...............................
A little side-note was when I was around eighteen years-old, I caught a flu and living in a small house with many sisters, my convalescence
took place in the downstairs front-room which had become my bedroom. Sometime in the early evening, I was wrestling with the fever
beneath heavy covers and large coats that belonged to long-dead relatives, when I heard a voice that would unknowingly visit me again
in my future.
1978, I was doped-up the eyeballs in a plain-looking room surrounded by braided military personnel. Whatever these generals were
witnessing, it involved myself being debased and not playing the part of a usual ostentatious young man who enjoyed fighting.
(Who'd have thought such a scenario would reappear in one of BIAD's fictional recounts of his past, huh?!)
With a strange background noise of constant mumbling, one craggy General stepped forward and growled "Let's keep him in there
for a couple of hours more". Me, all side-burns and shaven head, heard the order and decided that enough was enough.
Ignoring the ghostly forms before me, I tore open my bedroom door and staggered towards the light in the only other room where
there was no bed. The living-room.
Breathing deeply in my seventies underpants, I groggily warned my mother and two sisters that 'you're not fuckin' keeping me
in for a couple of hours'!
Their shocked looks were enough to say they agreed, so I then went back to bed and dumped the disease sometime in the early hours.
Hallucinations, something that took me a week to realise.
...............................
But that was then and this is now. There I stood, unable to think properly due to a constant mumbling in my head and the threat that if
I returned to my bed, my spine would twist itself into knots of agony. I slumped to the carpet and hoped my wife didn't awaken.
After a few minutes, I began a routine that would stay with me for almost three weeks.
I'd sleep normally until 11.39pm-ish. With my back aching, I'd rise and go to a small room where my old computer sat. I would have to
wear my wife's reading spectacles to see what was happening on the internet and then after thirty minutes, I would enter a bedroom
that my son used to sleep in. (He owns his own house these days.)
Laid on the rarely-used bed in the redecorated room, I stare out of the window at the night whilst twisting for a comfortable spot on the
cold linen. Sometime after 2.00am, I'd rise and return to the computer room and sit in a chair gazing like a zombie at nothing but gloom.
The mumbling never stopped and there were no quiet moments where I could possibly interpose my own thoughts and musings. I was an
audience in my head and had no say on what was happening to me. Breathing like an old man sitting the dark and his pyjamas, I listened
to the inane ramblings that made no sense.
Then back to the son's ex-bedroom and repeat the writhing. At 5,00am, I'd listen to a small radio via an ear-piece and wonder if the
night-owls who ring into the radio station would mention a similar crazy schedule. Time ticked slowly in the star-less glue and any
interests of creating stories or art seemed to belong to someone else. My brain was full, thank you.
Dawn would prompt me to return to my own bedroom and faking a resting body, I would wait until 6.30am and then prepare breakfast.
Hot coffee and toast in bed, my wife was surprised at my recovery and looking proud, I wondered how to explain what was really happening.
It was the first day of the second week that she discovered my twilight timetable. Standing in the dark, I attempted to explain my condition
with some form of rationale. It was like a set of instructions, advice that helped to not upset her own sleep and keep me from wriggling in
our bed. I would recover as daylight came and any sleep needed could be captured during the day under the heading of 'getting better'.
Switching the bedside lamp on, my smart wife looked at me in silence. "We'll talk in the morning" she said and the shadowy bedroom
returned with the blessed glowing clock reminding me that I was late for my walk. In those lonely hours, I felt ashamed like I'd taken
a mistress who mocks my need to be normal again.
The next day, I told her how it seemed I was at the mercy of these nightly directives and that I couldn't even offer an alternative considering
the imaginary pain that threatened to chew on my back. After assuring me that every day we would go for a long walk, my wife said she
would formulate a plan to bring me back from the stupor I shuffled around in and the prison of a coward who couldn't think for himself.
Love can kiss, but there are teeth behind those caring lips.
Midnight...nearly and the voice strongly proposed that I should avoid the certain pain in my spine by getting with program.
The mumbling -the non-descript voices that always accompanied the mysterious chief were there and it would be the end of the third
week before I realised who these vague vocals were.
Remember my flu at eighteen...? In my parents house, the television was always on. From morning 'till night, the three-channel set churned
out it's limited programmes. Today, the only time the TV in the bedroom went on was just before I nodded off and went into my usual
caroling that some call snoring.
The bastard-stuff was following me down to where the later nightmare was waiting. A clue that I had to remember.
"Stay in bed, I want you to stay in bed" my wife ordered as I sneakily began the procedure of being up all night.
"My back is killing me" I whimpered and yet, lay back down and felt the care she was delivering. I made it until 2.30am before
I silently rose and followed the routine.
Up to this point, I'd hardly eaten. I would drink water, bottles of the stuff and moan in my daytime haze that I just wasn't hungry.
That was when the fruit appeared and I was surprised at my appetite to eat it. Oranges, pears and bananas became my staple diet
and considering I came from a world of easily-made fried-food, I gobbled them down with relish. Fuck you flu.
Then I noticed something on one of my half-hearted wanderings of the night. The voice that would tell me to get up became faint
as my wife would sleepily counter the order. The stumbling out of the bedroom became shorter and the routine would be abrupt as
I approached the spare room.
I'd turn and go back to my own bed and ignoring the pain in my lower-back, I'd wake later to see it was five o'clock in the morning.
We were winning.
As of right now, I have a five-inch high band of numbness around my stomach and lower back. My eyesight has returned and I don't
need spectacles to type this. I've slept normally until last night when something very strange -although BIAD-like in it's oddity, occurred.
I awoke in the darkness and felt confident that I'd drop back off to sleep now that the mumblings had long gone and the TV remained
switched off when I retired to bed. But just for old-time's sake, I'll take a look at the clock and make a wager.
If there's a '4' in the displayed number, it would be a sign that my ordeal was over. Lifting myself on my elbow, I peered across the
sleeping form of the woman who can chase flu-induced nightmares away. The eldritch digits told me it was 4.44am.
I smiled, turned over and went back to sleep.
Maybe the medal-adorned General is still out there with his horde of muttering assembly and maybe he believes I should endure a couple
of hours more under his command. But the woman who wields real power, that energy of love we all aspire to attain, said not today
General... not on my watch.
Thank you too for the encouragement.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.
![[Image: 14sigsepia.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/9yxWwxj/14sigsepia.jpg)
