You’ll have to forgive me, but the Friday post for the “Stop Being Stupid” mini-series is currently absent. Normal service will be resumed soon, I promise.

Frankly, I’ve just spent six hours in A&E with my eldest son, who is 23. He’s been absolutely felled by the mother of all flu strains, which is bad enough, but here is the fun part: almost all of his symptoms were those of carbon monoxide poisoning. The doctor this morning thought they were too similar, which had me terrified, especially because of a mini-disaster at his work the day before where he had the potential to be exposed.

I was worried sick, but thankfully I noticed one thing that made me think it wasn’t right, yet I still needed him checking out.

I am so very thankful to the doctor for being cautious and sending us straight to the hospital. And seriously, thank you to all the hospital staff. They checked him out and made us feel like we weren’t wasting their time for a little bit of flu. The doctor told us this particular strain is so bad that even fit and healthy 18-year-olds are currently crawling on their knees into A&E and struggling to walk. They’ve got an influx of cases at the moment.
My eldest, the absolute beast of a lad, is never ill, beyond a small sniffle. When he is running a 40*c temperature and crying at the severity of his headache, you know it’s serious. It had me running around terrified, even though the back of my mind was saying, “it’s flu.”

I’m now on my fourth coffee, utterly drained, and watching the clock tick to a reasonable hour that I can finally call bedtime. I love my kids, and this has taken every ounce of reserve I had.

Normal service will be soon. I will try to get today’s post, “The Rainy Day Illusion: Running a Charity With Zero Financial Reserves,” up this weekend. I just need to finish editing it before I post.

Quick Call-Out:
Right, you’ll have to bear with me. The irony of the series being called ‘Stop Being Stupid’ while I’ve been half-mad with worry all day is not lost on me. Keep an eye out for The Rainy Day Illusion this weekend. I might need a ‘Just Recovering From A&E’ reserve fund myself. Cheers.