Two months ago today, I was seeing Pop Will Eat Itself.*

I had a slight cough. I felt a headache. I worked from home the next couple of days, after all, I had a cold. I took Lemsip, and painkillers, and didn't do much.
A week later, I went to the Doctor. Who prescribed me some antibiotics, as I had a viral and bacterial lower respiratory tract infection.

That didn't work. A week later - 8th June - I was back. I'd spent a week sweating, shivering, freezing and on fire, with a sore throat, frantic coughing, vomiting, significant stomach upsets, everything. At one point I lost my ability to talk. And still, temperatures, ceaseless migraines, sore throats, endless coughing fits, vomiting, aching muscles and bones, coughing up sputum at some points several times an hour, including - in one night - an inch of plehgm expelled from my body. No appetite, running hot and cold, chills, freezes, and flushes, wheezing, unable to breathe, endlessly, endlessly. The GP gave me some more antiobiotics. This time things I couldn't pronounce, including Metroniozale, and something else starting with a C. I was upgraded to Bronchitis. My Doctor checked both lungs and they sounded the same. So I was given an inhaler, and packed off for X-rays.

Those pills? This was an average lunchtime for a few weeks. The X-rays came back. Pneumonia - in both lungs. Which is both very rare, and fatal in about a third of cases. I was upgraded to even stronger drugs. I sweated, and shivered, and shook my way through. Slowly it subsided. I still had immense coughing fits. I still sucked on an inhaler. I was still very very ill. The worst I have been in my adult life. By far.

The day after Metallica played Glastonbury, and my jaw felt swollen. I tried to put on my glasses, and they fell off my face due to a swollen jaw. I looked like a boxer. I went from being asleep, to being in A&E in 20 minutes, which is a new personal best. I looked like this. One side of my face paralysed, unable to move, and barely able to talk. Again. It was an abscess - an infection in my jaw, caused by a ruined immune system, a badly decayed tooth, and a infection. I was on an IV drip for several hours, before being given yet more drugs. Even now in fact, two months after it started, I am still on pills. But I am getting better. A week later, and with some movement back and my jaw not so swollen, the dentist injected me with anaesthetic, which pierced a second abscess inside my mouth, which then exploded into my numb mouth. Ten minutes after that, and a piece of bone in my skull had been yanked out with a sharp metal implement. It hurt, but it was the only way to end the chance of recurrent infections.

Only now, two weeks after that, has my jaw stopped stinging. Bloody hell. I am exhausted of this. I've shaved for the first time in about a month. I haven;t taken a painkiller since 6.30 this morning, which is fantastic news. Do we have to go through hell to get to heaven?