Next Time I’m Getting A Flu Shot

Until, ooh, about six weeks ago, I was one of those irritating people who’d bang on and on about their marvelous immune system and how they NEVER get sick when travelling. You know the sort…

Oysters in Thailand. Ceviche in Kenya. Mysterious stews in Guatemalan eateries with pigs foraging in the mud around the tables, rare beef pho in fly-filled noodle joints — bring it on!

“Swine flu?” I’d say, dismissively. “Had that when it first came to the UK. Bit of a sore throat, went to bed, right as rain 24 hours later…”

“Street food?” I’d begin. “I don’t know why people whinge on about eating street food. I’ve NEVER got sick from street food. Comes from eating dirt as a baby and not being hung up on hygiene…”

But, I hate to say it (and, yes, I know whining about minor ailments has been bit of a theme lately, and all I can say in mitigation is that you’re lucky you haven’t had to spend time with me IRL and I PROMISE this will be the last one), this is no longer the case.

My immune system has gone sub-tropical. My leukocytes are, basically, knackered. They’ve been so busy chasing after potential tummy bugs in Asia that they’re crashing like flies before even the weediest cold bug.

And I’ve had a truly international selection of those lately…

EXHIBIT 1: THE BEIJING COLD (NOVEMBER)

Go to Beijing in winter, and you’re going to get a cold (unless you’re my spawn, of course, who has the constitution of an ox). There’s world class smog, temperatures below zero, and 25 million people in the city, most of them, often, fighting to get on the same bus as you. And, while the whole snotting and spitting thing in China can be overplayed — it’s not like the 70s, when buses were routinely ankle-deep in mucus during winter — colds do the rounds. Big time.

Now, when I get a cold, I don’t really tend to do anything about it, an attitude that I occasionally conflate with stoicism. I mean, I whine, obviously. I whine A LOT. I wallow in bed and self pity reading books. But I don’t do any of that crap like, umm, taking medicine, or seeing a doctor — well, except with this one I couldn’t really breathe properly, so I went to a pharmacist. A CHINESE pharmacist. The prescription of earthworm, human placenta and deactivated bacteria, remarkably, worked.

EXHIBIT 2: THE AUSTRALIAN COLD (DECEMBER)

Our last stop in Asia was with lovely friends in Singapore. One of whom brought back a particularly unlovely cold from Australia, which I developed pretty much on arrival in the UK.

It wasn’t an epic cold. Just one of those snotty ones that — and I blame diving for this — rapidly migrated to my sinuses. If you haven’t had a sinus headache, I must congratulate you. They’re up there with migraines on the horror show factor, and the only thing that really works is codeine. Lots of it. Codeine, unfortunately, is the sort of fun drug that you can’t really get in the UK without seeing a doctor, so I suffered in — well, not exactly silence — until it stopped.

EXHIBIT 3: THE BRITISH COLD (DECEMBER-JANUARY)

Now, I’m not sure who I got this one from. But it settled in right after Christmas, generating some absolutely delightful phlegm, a hawking cough that woke the entire house up, a general feeling of malaise and the sort of sinus headaches that make it feel like there’s an elephant in your head trying to break its way out.

Now, it is not (to put it mildly) unusual for one to acquire a cold in Britain in the winter, when the native population tends to wander around hunched, miserable and mainlining pseudo-ephedrine with an enthusiasm normally devoted to tea or tap lager, and folk from overseas make resolutions never to return again.

But it was at this point, gentle reader, that I realised my immune system was not what it used to be. And began, perhaps belatedly (and, yes, I am a fan of vaccines), to wonder whether one of the reasons I rarely got sick before was because I had a flu jab every year.

EXHIBIT 4: BULGARIAN FLU (JANUARY-FEBRUARY)

How was I to know that Sofia was in the grip of a flu epidemic when we visited Bulgaria? Well, when I got it of course — doh!

Bulgarian flu, I can safely say (and my poor dad can confirm) is a bitch. A real, bona fide flu of the sort that, before paracetamol, killed a lot of people. Aches. Shivers. Hideous semi-waking fever dreams. 39.5° temperature (that’s over 103° for Fahrenheit folk).

Oh, and then it went to the lungs. Where it settled so savagely that I was (and had I not invested in shedloads of cheap Bulgarian cigarettes, this could have been an amazing turning point for me) for THREE WHOLE DAYS incapable of smoking.

I tried, mark you. I tried, despite realising, each time I took a tentative drag and my lungs exploded in rivers of liquid pain, that if I don’t stop some time, one day my lungs will feel like this all the time…

But I digress. (And, please, please don’t ask me when I plan to give up smoking.) I was out for four days and not good for a few days after that. My poor dad was in bed for the big end of a week and has only just gone back to normal. And even Z was a bit croaky with a slight fever for, ooh, about three hours…

My mum? Well SHE had had the flu jab…

EXHIBIT 5: THE SPANISH COLD (FEBRUARY)

It was really lovely to see my gorgeous cousin and her spawn, Z’s gorgeous little cousins, the other weekend. Bit of a shame she had a stinking cold, mind you. Not just for her. But — because, frankly, this is ALL ABOUT ME — for me.

“Don’t hug me!” I said hysterically. “I’ll get it! I’ve had four colds since November and this is beyond a joke!”

“Oh, you’ve probably got immunity to this one, then,” she said, caringly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been out of the country for two years.”

“Well, this one’s from Spain,” she said.

This one? Well, it’s not actually that bad. Bit of a cough. Bit shaky. Sucking back snot. Spitting gunk like, well, like a Chinese person, really. But, y’know, I haven’t needed to go to bed. Or a doctors. Or anything…

ANYWISE… NEXT TIME I’M GETTING A FLU SHOT

So… next time I travel in winter, particularly in Northern Europe, I’m getting a flu shot.

Getting sick is a pain in the butt when you’re freelance (or digital nomading) — it hits your income, generates a logjam of back work and leaves you constantly chasing your tail.

More importantly, though, I feel like I’ve hardly had any quality time with friends and family, I’ve seen almost nothing of the country that I wanted to see, there are people I’ve hardly caught up with and some I haven’t seen at all.

And that sucks. Badly.

We are off to Egypt in two sleeps. Where it will be — yay! — warm! Although they have flu there, too. Bird flu. I will be steering well clear of poultry farms.