Hey guys, I thought I’d write about my epic 3 week adventure with glandular fever (aka “mono”).

So it started with me just feeling very tired for no reason. I thought “hey, I’ll just take a day off and rest a bit”. Nope.  4 days in I found a lump on my neck. I was also a bit feverish a few times. 7 days in I was still super tired and saw the doctor. She found that my lymph nodes were swollen and I had some sort of infection. I got put on antibiotics.

9 days in and Ronja came to live with me and look after me! That was cool, because my parents pissed off on holiday, and if I had to go through this whole thing by myself, I would have offed myself.

10 days in and the antibiotics hadn’t helped at all. My throat was starting to hurt, getting a bit worse every day. Eating solid food was difficult, and I started transitioning to mushy food. I also started throwing up almost every day! I think it was a side effect of this antibiotic, because it only happened when I was on it. So things were getting kind of crappy for me.

12 days in I saw the doctor again. Was diagnosed with tonsillitis cause my tonsils were all horrible and disgusting. I got put on a new antibiotic. Eating was incredibly painful. Even drinking water was painful. Talking was a little bit painful too. Normal painkillers didn’t really help. Nothing really gave me any pain relief.

16 days in and my throat was feeling a tiny bit better. Then suddenly red dots started appearing on my neck. Oh well, went to bed. Next day my face was red and most of my chest was all rashy and diseased looking. Great.

17 days in and I saw a doctor again. It was a weekend so I couldn’t go to my usual nearby place, and had to drive myself to hospital. I was quite lucky that I felt well enough to drive that morning. Well this doctor finally gave me some pain relief! Hurray! I got super strong codeine tablets, a 3rd antibiotic, and some anti-allergy tablets, just in case my rash was caused by an allergy. Doctor suggested I might have glandular fever, but it’s too early to say for sure.

I felt worse than ever, but the codeine tablets got me high, so I was in a good mood for the first time in ages. Was quite feverish for a few days. My rash kept spreading until it covered my whole body. It looked really bad but didn’t feel too bad. Mostly my skin was just really sensitive to touch. Even just the feeling of my clothes touching my skin was quite uncomfortable at times.

20 days in and I was starting to feel a bit better every day. Was starting to look like I would make it out of this alive. Went to see a 4th doctor for advice and blood tests.

25 days in and I was feeling almost normal. Went to the doctor’s again. Got my blood test results and they finally confirmed I had glandular fever! Woop! This was also my birthday, and the doctor gave me permission to have a few drinks, so that was cool. I still had to take my antibiotics for a few more days, but after that I should be safe to kiss people again!

So all of that was a huge waste of time. I was very unproductive.
For a lot of the time I was too tired and sick to even play video games!

Luckily once you get glandular fever you are immune for life, so I’ll never have to deal with that crap ever again. Apparently if you get glandular fever when you’re a kid, it’s quite harmless and most parents won’t even notice their kids have it. But if you get it in your 20’s, it will fuck you up. It’s a shame I never got it when I was a kid.

They should really work on a vaccine for that.

Anyway, I’m at 99% health now. My skin’s still a little bit red, and I’ve lost some weight and strength. But I’m feeling pretty good. I think I also managed not to infect Ronja. We’ll see how that goes.

Here’s us, by Ronja.