Far away inside

When I was 15 I had been staying overnight at my pals and when I awoke I found s golf ball sized lump on my neck.

I went and showed my mum and she wheeked me to the doctors.

Very bad tonsillitis they said and I got antibiotics

That was January, and the antibiotics and lump kept on going til February.

By February I had lumps on both sides, and under my arms. The back of my throat was covered in pus and my tonsils were red raw.

Glandular fever.

By this time I was too sick to get into the doctors so he came in to see me every couple of days. He took bloods because they were worried I might get diphtheria.

Our Dog at the time got sick too - I blamed myself. I would drag myself out of bed crawl downstairs and try to feed him something to make him better.

He had to be put to sleep and I had to lay in bed and listen while my dad dug a wee grave in the garden. Too weak to do anything

The pus in my throat and nose were horrific... I could pull ropes out my nose. But I was so weary I couldn’t get out of bed.

My mum promised me if I got better she would buy me a pair of kickers. Am not saying that is what made me better but I did get them.

During my recovery the doctor said it was important to get protein into me. There was a health food shop in Town at the time... they stocked planters peanuts - they have protein.

And so it is that every time I see a bag of planters I’m taken back to that horrible time between January and April that I was so ill that I couldn’t even change the channel on the radio when the sam songs came on, over and over .... Martha and the Muffins, Cuba by the Gibson brothers, turning Japanese, can’t stand up for falling down