Aargh!

After a painful and almost sleepless night I rang NHS24 for a wee chat and they referred me to the out-of-hours clinic at the Western to see a doctor. In spite of the lack of other symptoms (and me never knowingly having had chickenpox), turns out that the by now very painful rash is shingles. The afflicted area is almost a textbook copy of the dermatome for C2.3, it turns out.

I got given drugs and was back home in about two hours; impressively efficient. Although as soon as we got in I did get a follow-up phone call from the v nice but slightly absent-minded doc to say that she had given me an insufficiently high dosage of the anti-viral stuff. Dear Mr H trekked all the way back to the clinic for me to pick up pills of the correct size; meanwhile I checked up that the correct dosage really is an incredible 4 grams per day. They're working already.

You see here the original pack and the monster replacement. A dull photo, but preferable to a blip of the rash, I assure you.

And finally, a public apology is due to dear Ted, who it appears is completely blameless (and has now been rescued from the freezer). Hmm, maybe it was all triggered by HR....