On the last day of our holiday I could feel either the same bug I had before going away making a comeback - doing an encore of sorts - or an entirely new bug caught on the aeroplane making it’s presence known.
Given that I had two days at home before returning to work, I thought “I’ll be fine”. I’m pretty sure the staff turning the cogs of the universe noticed that thought, and had a good laugh to themselves as they tipped an entire bag of spanners into the machinery in front of them.
I can laugh about it now. I’ve never had a panic attack before.
After two days filled with snot and coughing spectacularly, yesterday morning introduced an entirely new experience. I woke up at 5am feeling like I had been given a pretty good kicking by an invisible gang of football hooligans. I sat up in bed, grabbing at my shoulder, in so much pain I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Five minutes later I was downstairs, half-dressed, taking ibuprofen, and trying to figure out what on earth was going on - moving my arm around, flexing my torso - trying to figure out where the pain was coming from, what caused it to get worse or better, and what the hell might be going on.
Where was the pain coming from? From inside me?! My lung? My shoulder? My side?
By the time my other half arrived downstairs a couple of hours later I wasn’t much better, and she convinced me to call the doctor. After filling in an online self-assessment form outlining the nature of the problem, the system told me to visit the local pharmacy.
Half an hour later - after another round of ibuprofen - I stood in the pharmacy, waiting to talk to the pharmacist. While waiting a succession of old(er) people trooped through, picking up colossal bags filled with drugs for their various ailments. While waiting, I realised that the fresh air had cleared my nose out, and propping my hand in my coat pocket had stopped my shoulder hurting as long as I stood perfectly still.
In-between serving octogenarians, the pharmacist finally made his way towards me and asked how he could help. I explained the morning so far, and he immediately asked:
“Have you taken anything already?”
“Ibuprofen”
“Has it helped?”
“A little bit”
“You could try some heat gel - do you have any at home?” (by now he was scanning the shelves for it)
I have two daughters that play rugby. We have heat get, cold gel, cold compresses, sprays, bandages, space blankets… you name it - we have it.
“Yes, we have heat gel at home”.
And that was that. I walked home - still trying to figure out why putting my hand in my pocket and standing still helped.
The rest of the day was filled with work meetings on Microsoft Teams - sitting at the desk and trying to concentrate on the conversations while the invisible football hooligans occasionally turned back up. I discovered that if I lowered my chair to rest my arm on the desk, my shoulder stopped hurting so much.
Doing the math after lunch, I figured out it was time for the next round of ibuprofen - and that’s when the properly scary moment happened. Fifteen minutes before the first meeting after lunch both my arms went dead for a few seconds - and then my chest tightened up. Looking back, the ibuprofen was the cause of the dead arms, and the chest tightening was my brain going into full-on panic mode.
I got up and started marching through the house, thinking up all kinds of rubbish that might be wrong with me. I pulled off my top and opened the kitchen window - and got blasted by a gale of windy, rainy air from outside. It helped enormously. Suddenly the loss of feeling in my arms was gone - replaced by pins and needles in my fingers for a minute or two.
I started self-diagnosing like an absolute idiot - wondering if I’d actually had COVID and didn’t know. I’ve heard horror stories about it’s random effects.
After rummaging through the kitchen drawers in search of the heating gel and coming up with nothing I made my way to the corner shop and bought a tube of “deep heat”. I’ve never used it before, and had no idea if it might work. I still wonder if it’s nothing more than a placebo - a bit like the “magic sponge” that sports coaches use on ankles.
By yesterday evening the pain had largely gone - or rather, moved from my shoulder to my upper right arm. Odd. I told my other half about the scare with the ibuprofen and the numb arms.
“Yeah - Ibuprofen can do funny things like that if you keep taking it”
Fingers crossed - after carefully sleeping on the other side last night - the pain is largely gone. The snot hasn’t. I still have absolutely no idea what caused it.
Is this the next phase of my life? Not quite knowing if I’ll wake up fit and healthy, or if the invisible football hooligans will make a return?