The Ill

Some of you may have experience in matters such as this, but I can honestly say that playing hockey on a hot Sunday afternoon is not much fun when you feel you're likely to pass out at any given moment.

It doesn't help when some think you're just hungover - light-headed, mildly nauseous, not able to participate in much exercise without needing a rest, symptoms not unlike a good hangover.

Of course it also doesn't help that the night before you slept poorly, largely because of unpleasantries going on within your digestive system.

To then get home, and feel worse, to have the diarrhoea of the previous night turn into something much stranger, to feel utterly tired and helpless, while oddly at the same time not exactly feeling sick. Now that's just weird and annoying. Especially when you have better things to be doing.

A couple of hours later when the sudden need to vomit draws you away from Top Gear, you kind of figure something's not quite right. You also figure it's probably a good time to email the tutor and say you probably won't be in tomorrow.

When tomorrow comes and you're feeling no better, you decide to go to the doctor. You have to waste five hours waiting until you can see the doctor, but fortunately sleep and podcasts are a suitable time filler.

The doctor prescribes drugs. He says "dehydration is your main concern, it'll make you much sicker than you are now, so keep drinking - 2 1/2 litres a day." So I take drugs. I keep drinking.

Come Tuesday I'm more dehydrated than I've ever been in my life - and I've gone for long walks in 50C deserts with no water!!! And the real weird thing about dehydration is that you can't stomach anything. You're forcing the liquid in. It stays, but your body makes it known it would prefer you didn't water it.

And so you get to mid afternoon and realise you've had just over a litre so you scull a few hundred mils thinking it'll soon come out the way it went in. It doesn't, but you feel bloated, so don't want any more liquid. But you force it. Slowly. Over time.

And Wednesday you'll still whacked out. But you make it to school, to do some fairly urgent stuff, but it takes a lot out of you. So you go home and rest. And Thursday, you get to your morning class, but you can barely read anything, and classmates say you look haggard. And then you go to work, and your boss says leave anytime you want. But you stay, cos at least the job is mindless enough that you can achieve things in your half-zombie state. And then you have drinks after work cos the big boss wants them. But no one bought any non-alcoholic, so rather than drink water (again!) you get half a glass of disgusting red, and drink it slowly. And you start to feel better. More awake. More alert. So you have a bit more - a third of a glass, don't want to over do it.

And there you have it, the cure to dehydration is crap red wine, in moderation.

I'm hoping the game tomorrow won't be quite so bad. Fingers crossed.

And here's yet another review. From me. To you.

Oh, and the photo was for those people who don't like reading. About ME!