No it's not SARS, but I am still off work. My doctors says it's a 'viral infection', so all their expensive education wasn't wasted, then. No cure, of course, but 'gargling with soluble aspirin' might help the sore throat. Wow, if my grannie could be here now, she could be doing the emergency surgery and earning $40-50K. 'A nice hot cup of lemon and honey and an aspirin, love, that'll see you right'.

Don't mind me. Being glum and sarcastic is part of being ill. I know doctors do a good job here and there, I just seem to suffer from all the things they can't cure, or diagnose, or even define. All those ordinary, uninteresting things. If only I had an obscure, and major disease, which attracted real research money then they might be able to do something. Maybe? Oh no, that's right, Pete died this year, and he used to have to lecture students about Lupus (they came to visit because it was fairly rare), as it was just something in their reference books. Hey, I can read, too.

Don't mind me - I am quite happy to let my body work it out (one day it'll lose and something may kill me) but now I have a steady job I have to get a 'sick note' from an expert, to say I am not just skiving off to watch the footie.... At least they pay me to be ill. When I was self-employed the loss of earnings just increased the stress, which is why I generally used to work through illness.

I can never get it out of my head, you see, that these highly respected doctors (authority figures) are ex-medical students (those silly people going on pub crawls, pushing prams with their friends in diapers, etc). Gosh, two years later, they are like a priest/shaman. At least my currrent doctors are women, so that 'healer' role seems slightly likelier - I am afraid the man in the pinstripe suit just never cuts it for me.