I got the fever

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. This is also true of health.

There’s probably something you’re susceptible to, and maybe something you’re just never going to get. It’s a bit like immune system top trumps. I was lucky enough to be immune to TB, so didn’t need to have the horrible inoculation that scars your arm for ever after. I’m not suggesting that a barely noticeable scar is worse than dying of tuberculosis, I was just pleased to be one of the lucky few who didn’t have to faint to get out of it.

Because fainting is not something my body balks at – it loves a good faint. I went to the doctor about it once, he told me some people are just fainters. I’m not sure if this was meant to stop me worrying that it was some kind of precursor to a horrific death, or a terrible slight on my contribution to history – either way, I am much more than a fainter, thank you very much.

I might lose consciousness every once in a while, but my natural resistance to one particular infectious disease kept my upper arm unscarred. Until, that is, my extreme reaction to insect bites left me with a permanent reminder of one particular mosquito. Something’s bound to get you in the end.

With me, it probably won’t be food poisoning. I have a pretty strong stomach, and could probably digest a rhino if I ever had the intention to consume one. Being a vegetarian, this is unlikely. Granted, not eating meat and fish cuts down my chances of contracting food poisoning, but I don’t think we should underestimate my constitution. One long day at college, my class ordered pizza. We all ate the same pizzas, and I was the only one to avoid feeling pretty awful. I’m just not one for vomiting. Not that the others were pro-vomiting, they are just more apt to vomit under certain conditions.

At times like that I’m really proud of my body. It might freak out when confronted with an insect bite, and sometimes at the slightest touch of grass, and collapse full on the floor for no particular reason, but it’s not going to vomit, even if it eats death pizza. At times right after times like that, I start to worry if that’s just my body being really bad at expelling toxins that it needs to get rid of, and right after that I start thinking of all the situations that could prove fatal. I’m also prone to anxiety.

This was demonstrated last time I had flu. I thought I was going to die. I don’t mean I felt really poorly – I genuinely thought I was going to die. I was at university, and my flatmates weren’t around for the weekend. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, as I didn’t have anyone to look after me. Due to my body’s predisposition for dizziness, my temperature was causing the room to spin. After a while, I decided I had to get myself a glass of water.

Because of my body’s love for hitting the restart button every so often, I have a few stories about hilarious places I’ve fallen over. Once I did it on some stairs, so got a bonus fall. And one Christmas I was ill, and got up in the middle of night, again for a glass of water. I remember reaching up to the shelf to get a glass, and then the glass getting smaller and smaller, and then going into black and white. Then I remember waking up in the bin.

This time was similar. I got out of bed to get a glass of water, and woke up after a while on my bedroom floor. The carpet of my flat was not particularly comfortable, or even clean; so I thought I better get up. Also, I was really thirsty, so up I got. And down I went.

Surprisingly, I had not regained the power to stand in a matter of minutes. I lay on the floor for a bit to regain my strength and then tried again. This time I didn’t even make it to upright. I lay there and resigned myself to the fact that this was how I was going to die. Two facts were troubling me. The first was that flu lasts for about a week, the second being that you can’t last without water for more than three days. My impact weakened mental faculties were still capable of deducing that these numbers did not add up well for me.

I realised that I was about to become one of those awful stories about people dying alone. I pictured my flatmates finding my cold, dead body when they returned. I pictured the local news report, and the misspelling of my name in my hometown’s local paper. It was pretty depressing, but there was nothing I could do but lie there and wait for death.

As well as a good faint, my body has another reaction to high temperature. I have been known to hallucinate. Lying on the cold, hard carpet of my draughty bedroom, I drifted into a strange reality where I was mountaineer making camp in a storm. I remember the snow, and the wind, as my tent took a beating from the elements. It wasn’t very comfortable, but at least I wasn’t thirsty.

When I finally came back to reality I was looking at an upside down bottle of iced tea. A few days ago I had made some for a picnic. I had made two gigantic bottles of it, and still had one of them left. I had then come home and meant to put it in the fridge, but forgotten. And the next thing I knew I had lost the ability to walk upright. It knew it probably wasn’t fit for human consumption – it had been outside and then in my room for a good while, but it was the only liquid within reach.

It was actually just out of reach, I had to knock it over and let it roll towards me. I couldn’t even sit up, so I had to open the lid and just pour it on my face. It wasn’t pretty, but it was fluid. Fluid full of the sugar that was to be my sole colorific intake for the next couple of days. I’m not exactly sure how long I stayed on the floor drinking very-much-not-iced tea, because I kept slipping into a crazy dream world. For a time I must have heard the people upstairs talking, because I thought someone was in my bedroom, shouting at me as I lay in bed. This had its good and bad points. Although I believed myself to be receiving completely unwarranted verbal abuse, I also thought I was in bed, which is better than being on the floor.

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but I didn’t die in the end. The tea saved my life. By the time I had drank half of it in brief face-drenching bursts, I had the strength to hold myself upright long enough to position myself so I would faint onto my bed, and when the tea had completely gone, I had rediscovered the ability to shuffle as far as the kitchen, have a lie down on the floor, get myself a glass of water, have another lie down, and then shuffle back to bed in triumph.

I had always felt tea was important, but I hadn’t anticipated it saving my life. If I were a prepared sort of person, I would always keep a large bottle of a sugary drink next to my bed, just in case. But I’m not that organised.

So there you have it, I have the stomach of an ox, and could probably digest one, no trouble, if I wanted to, which I don’t. But on the flip side, when confronted with influenza I am apt to believe I am a distressed mountaineer.  In the (soon to be a sensation) game of immune system top trumps, I score high for constitution, but low for the ability to stay conscious and distinguish reality. That’s just the hand I’ve been dealt. And I have to live with it, but thanks to tea I don’t have to die on the floor with it. So I’m chalking this one up as a success.