I love my dad.

He’s been going around telling people that I have Downs Syndrome.

Me: “NOOO, GODDAMMNIT, YOU DEMENTED OLD FOOL! Ramsey. Hunt. Syndrome. That just means that for a probably temporary, yet undetermined period of time, I may look, sound and move like a little bit of a retard. It doesn’t mean that I actually AM a retard”.

D-Old Man: “That just sounds like semantics to me.”

Me: “This is payback for all those times I told people you used to sneak around the country side inseminating cows, ISN’T IT…?”

Sometimes I think you can tell just how much someone loves you by just how little sympathy you can squeeze out of them. Cos that’s the last goddamn thing I need.

My wife’s new pet names for me include:

“My Sweet Spastic”,
“My Goofy Retard”,
and, her personal favourite – “My Cuddly Mongol”.

She’s also been offering my services out to friends going shopping. Apparently my presence should ensure they can get cripple parking, which, as we all know, are the best car parks you can get.

You gotta laugh, really. I may be an invalid, but at least I’m not invalid.

Basically, I’m in purgatory at the moment. This isn’t like some normal viral infection that normal people get that normally disappears totally after a couple of normal weeks of sickness. It’s some real nasty piece of facial nerve-eating work. Before I knew what I had, I feared I’d had a stroke or a brain tumour. I still don’t really know how I got it.

At the moment, I:

• HAVE BELLS PALSY. The right side of my face is pretty much paralysed. Which makes eating and speaking and drinking and smiling and spitting lots of retarded fun.

• AM PARTIALLY DEAF. There is constant ringing or humming or pressure or blockage of the right ear. It is not always too bad, but I find myself going “WHAT?!” a lot. This may or may not be permanent. Time will tell.
  WHAT?!

• HAVE VERTIGO. Linked to the ear. This is probably the worst of the whole lot. I would feel normal(er) again if this disappeared. My head feels three times larger than normal. I’m almost constantly off-balance. Even when I’m sitting still. It feels like I’m drunk all the time. Before this thing happened to me, I would have thought that would have been a pretty cool thing, to feel drunk without actually being drunk.
  It is not.
  Strangers look at me and don’t know what to think.
  I cannot walk in a straight line. I cannot drive. And if I can do neither of those, then there is no way in hell I’m putting a testicle either side of a bicycle seat to return to work.
  The vertigo needs to be vertigone.

• HAVE INSOMNIA. That’s the bit where I lay in bed for hours before finally dropping off, or wake up real early. Then I’m crabby.

• AM ITCHY. The right side of my face and ear itches. In a real painfully annoying kind of way. Painkillers don’t do jack. I have this overwhelming desire to stick my index finger right in my ear and scratch the contents of my skull.

• HAVE A GIMPY EYE. Right eye still has issues closing properly.

• AM GOING TO THE TOILET A LOT. I spend all day drinking iced water and cups of tea. I spend all night getting rid of it.

• AM A BIG BAG OF GIANT WUSS. We’re talking mood swings. It feels like I’m going insane. I’ve been reading the web diaries of other people who have suffered this and the thing that comes through is doctors have no idea how long things will take to get better, as every case is different. One guy was still battling with all his effects 384 fucking days later. I’m hoping I’m one of the lucky ones who can lick this in a few weeks. But that’s still a long time to be like this. I don’t go back to the hospital for a check-up until Wednesday. That’s a long time when all you do is sit around at home doing feck all. Boo-hoo, boo-hoo. Baby.

• AM A BIG TEARY BAG OF GIANT WUSS. I used to think it would be cool to be touched by something so deeply that it would move you to tears. People I have cared about have died and I didn’t cry. Just seemed stupid. Currently I shed tears singing songs like U2’s Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own … any U2 song, in fact. And some Bob Dylan. It is fucking stupid. I want my sanity back. Perhaps I’m just sad that when I sing, I sound like Jodie Foster in that movie Nell.
  “Cwaaazzzyyy….”

• GUILT. The D-Man is currently not the best company for his wife and daughters. Or himself. These were supposed to be Fun Times. Also, can’t get too hung up about my own woes, when plenty of other people are suffering worse. Some of them will die. They will die and they will be dead. I will get better. Slowly. In time. Hurry up. Arse. Punk. Bitch. Argh.

• NO FUN. I’m soooo over this thing. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about it. I certainly am. I just wanted to say thanks for all the well wishes and get-well soons. It means a lot. So do all the baking and dinners that friends and family have been bringing over. Cooking is a struggle for me at the moment. I get distracted easily. Can’t focus. I can’t make custard. I couldn’t even do soft-boiled eggs properly. I burned rolled oats.
  Although, I did manage to make a nice salmon pasta for D-Missus tonight, so maybe that’s a sign I’m on the mend.

I am trying to stay positive. There are bonuses…

I’m not sure when I will return to work. The hospital visit should give me a better idea of that. But when I do go back to work, it will be easy to ignore cretins. Because my, hopefully temporary, partial deafness should ensure I can’t hear them properly anyway. And people will know I have vertigo, so that should mean I can just turn up to work drunk and no one will be any-the-wiser.

Hey, if I’m going to have to stagger around looking like a drunk, I may as well be drunk, right?

Who’s with me?