Why 'the end of the world' and 'being sick' are kind of the same thing

I've spent the last week being sick. 

Not the kind of sick where you get a sore throat, a sore nose and sore eyes from watching midday movies and Ellen re-runs. Oh no. That would be a walk in the park with a cup of Messina compared to what I've been through. 

To say I was on my death bed is not that far fetched. Okay, yes it is. But my level of sickness was definitely up there. I was horrendously ill. I was an incubus of viral plague. My aches and pains had aches and pains. I had the kind of vitriolic cough that could have been misinterpreted as a nuclear warhead. I was inflicted by sudden and horrific coughing attacks which left me crippled and exhausted. So I would cry. And then call my mother. 

When life is all clean and shiny, being single and independent is a cinch. But as soon as things go ass up, I tend to drop my basket. I become needy and pathetic. So I call my mother on hourly intervals, requiring her reassurance on everything I do. Making toast. Taking medication. Attempting to do my tax return… Sometimes I just call her to remind her that I'm sick and therefore need extra doses of her spiritual maternal goodness. 

Anyway so here I am, laid up in my two-bedroom Bondi apartment which is getting smaller with every hour that I stay there, calling my poor mother every five minutes and fighting to breathe through the mucus that has taken up residency on my lungs (wasn't that a pleasant image). When I reach the conclusion that I am most definitely going to die here in front of the midday movie, I decide to go to the doctor. 

The good thing about reaching my level of intoxicated illness is all sense of personal presentation goes out the window. On went the track pants I've owned since I was 13. On went my ugg boots. And out the door I slumped not even bothering to put on a bra. 

And it was in this moment that I became overwhelmingly thankful I was smart enough to rent an apartment that was not only 200 metres from the beach, but a mere 100 metre slumping distance from a doctor and a pharmacy. This has now skyrocketed to the top of my list of renting credentials. Forget about built-ins and the pressure of the shower head. Being able to mooch up the street and straight into the hands of your Russian doctor and his prescription book has become the pinnacle of prime real estate in my weeping eyes. 

So there I am in the surgery waiting room – braless, feverish and coughing – while my fellow patients eye ball me like I'm a container of hazardous waste. My doctor, who's last name is too Russian to pronounce, took one look at me and put me on antibiotics. I cried and he sent me home. 

That was five days ago. Since then, I have watched every episode of The City, eaten a box of Oreos and become so accustomed to napping that I had to stop myself from nodding off around 11am today. I haven't called my mother in 24 hours and I managed not to get self-inflicted constipation from overdosing on Vitamin C tablets. 

#winning.