Praise be to our local pharmacy!

Okay I'm afraid this post is going to be full of lots of self-indulgent whining, but there is a point to it at the end if you can be bothered to read through my little pity party first!

So I'm off work sick, which is very unlike me, and I actually really do feel very very rough, which is also unlike me. My immune system is admittedly not brilliant (cue lots of joshing about vegetarians from my hardier colleagues) and I do tend to function with a pretty-much constant low level cold during the winter months, but today's bug is on another level entirely.

It's also made me break my own golden rule for calling in sick, which is that I don't call in sick unless I've been struck by a "condition" (to put it delicately) that means it's not advisable to move too far away from the loo.

But that's not today's problem. I am, in fact, A-OK in the bathroom department.

There's been some sort of virus going around work, and over the past few weeks various members of staff (including a lot of people who don't normally call in sick) have been going off ill. We like to share in the Derby Telegraph newsroom (there's no 'I' in team) so I guess it was only a matter of time before the bug came my way.

I have a headache, sore throat, ear ache, nose ache, eyeball ache (yes apparently this is possible), neck ache and body ache. Basically everything hurts and I feel exhausted. And unfortunately, every time I lie down I feel like my face is going to blow off, so I've not had more than about two hours sleep together in the last three days.

Feeling like a monkey's you-know-what!

Now I don't want to be too rude on the world wide web (there's enough of that out there already), so I won't be any more descriptive about how I'm feeling. But I've found this nice little picture that perfect illustrates that if I was going to be rude, I might suggest that I feel a bit like a monkey's......

And I've been popping pretty much everything I can find in the medicine cabinet for the past three days - which is not normal behaviour. I rarely take painkillers and my normal cold remedies are tea with honey, lemon and ginger, garlic, and apple cider vinegar.

Luckily Neil is a fan of medication though, so there is stuff in the house, and over the past few days I've been troughing my way through it. Which brings me to the point of this post, which is that I discovered this morning that I've completely guzzled our entire stash of non-prescription drugs. 

Uh-oh. Now what?

Neil has gone to work so I'm home alone.

The solution, dear friends, turned out to be right on my doorstep. Oh the joys of local shopping!

You see, I'm of a generation that believes that pharmaceuticals come from the supermarket. Prior to starting this challenge, if I wanted a bottle of cough mixture, a box of plasters or a pack of Vitamin C, I would pop to Morrison's or Tesco. It would never ever have occurred to me to actually go to a pharmacy.

But apparently these places do exist, and joyfully there is a little local branch of Lloyds within staggering distance from my house. So that's what I've just done. I got out of bed, wrapped myself up to the eyeballs in my winter woollies and staggered the 90-second walk to the shop on the corner of my street. It was a pretty pathetic display of human frailty, but I made it and was pretty chuffed by the selection inside. 

I bought Day Nurse and Night Nurse, which the lady behind the counter handed over at arm's length, while warning me that the latter would make me feel drowsy.

"I sincerely hope so," I croaked.

She smiled and told me she hoped I'd feel better soon.

Buoyed with my success (got the drugs and still standing) I popped into the fruit and veg shop on the way back to grab a couple of lemons for the aforementioned hippy remedy.

Unfortunately my triumph was short-lived as I managed to drop them in a fit of dizziness and see them squashed under a passing car 30-seconds later.

Ah well, win some - lose some. I felt pretty rotten by the time I got home and have vowed not to venture any further than the sofa for the rest of the day. 

But I think this really is a great example of how local shops really can be ports in the storm in times of need, therefore we really do need to support them day-to-day to help keep them in business. Even without the supermarket-free vow, I don't think I could have made it to Tesco today - my sight has gone a bit fuzzy thanks to the headache so I'm not entirely convinced I would be safe behind the wheel and the mere thought of the negotiating the huge superstore to find the medicines aisle brings me out in a hot sweat!

But thanks to our little Local Lloyds I was able to get what I needed and the Day Nurse is already making me feel a bit less sore in the head.

Now I'm just crossing everything that the Night Nurse will live up to its promise of drowsiness this evening....!