I suspect that prior to this year I’ve had it perhaps three times, though the second an third weren’t that big a deal and my body dealt with it before it really got a hold. The first time was a bit scary as I didn’t really know what was happening. I was out in the veg plot after lunch one day and suddenly my muscles all started to convulse, having felt absolutely fine not two minutes earlier. I ended up almost crawling back to the house, going to bed for twenty-four hours and on the following Monday, having woken up with a hugely swollen foot and lower leg, was prescribed heavy-duty penicillin with instructions to not pass “GO” and go straight to hospital if it got any worse. Fortunately it didn’t and in a week I was up and about again, though rather entertainingly the top layer of skin peeled off my entire lower leg as though I’d had a bad case of sunburn.
In January I had a bad case again. This time it kicked off just as I was contemplating going to bed. I suddenly felt very tired and got upstairs to the bedroom at which point I was again suffering quite wild convulsions which rapidly turned in to a raging fever once I managed to get into bed. Knowing the drill at this point, I contacted the local doctor who again prescribed heavy duty penicillin from just looking at a couple of photos of my leg — I didn’t even have to attend the surgery. My fever had really taken a hold at that point however and I woke up at one point almost swimming in my own sweat. It was horrible. I don’t think I’ve been so bad even when I had genuine flu.
In retrospect however, the most scary thing was that I’d started to hallucinate. Not just those odd little “imagining you’re seeing things” hallucinations that you sometimes get when you’re sleep-deprived however. I’d started to create an entire new reality. I only remembered it later on, perhaps because at the time I was trying to explain what was going on in this utterly nonsensical world to my wife (who I’m now fairly sure wasn’t actually even there). I was quite shocked that my brain could have invented this utterly implausible new reality that I completely bought into at the time regardless of the fact that it made no sense at all. It’s certainly given me a little insight into how some people who have got themselves into that sort of state can then make decisions to do things that make no sense to a rational person.