Being Poorly is not to be sneezed at

The art of being ill

I’m not sure if I’m a typical man but whenever I get a slight headache, I can’t help thinking I might die.

Of course, I battle on, while wondering what songs they’ll play at my funeral.

I’m thinking I’ll have everyone wearing bright colours and people won’t cry, they’ll just smile proudly and say what a privilege it was to share the earth with me.

I’m the same with those heart attacks I have a few hours after eating a steak pasty too quickly.

I tend not to bother the doctor unless I really have to though.

I did go the other week when I’d somehow got a cucumber stuck up my nose and a carrot in my ear.

He immediately concluded that I wasn’t eating properly.

Other people are at the doctors with the slightest of sniffles.

Every office has a hypochondriac and if they’re not ill then they’re on the internet looking up possible new ailments which could strike them down.

If you are genuinely ill there should be some symptoms which you can use to establish what’s wrong with you. Significant points of reference are temperature, spots, shooting pains and suddenly missing limbs. If everything hurts when you touch it, the problem could be your finger.

More annoying than those people who claim they’re constantly ill when they’re not is those who insist they’re not ill when they obviously are.

They’re the one’s who are responsible for keeping viruses alive as they cough and sneeze their way through the day, a martyr to the cause.

“Go home!” You’re thinking. “Oh look,” they say a few days later, “Half the office has gone down with what I have now.”

Sometimes, being ill can be embarrassing, depending where your area of concern is.

If a doctor has to snap a rubber glove on and say, “Brace yourself.” you may wish you’d had a hot toddy and gone to bed instead.

After all, self-medication can be just as good an option as your GP.

They say if a doctor treats a cold it will be gone in two weeks but if you just leave it alone it will last a fortnight.

If you are really poorly then it’s no fun at all and perhaps a bit flippant to suggest that laughter could be the best medicine.

But even if it can’t cure you, laughing at life will always make you feel a little bit better.

Unless you’ve got cracked ribs.



Next week . . .The art of mingling