Wednesday 28 January 2009

Sleeping Through Australia Day

I was looking forward to an Australia Day lie-in followed by some outdoor celebrations on Monday.

Instead I woke at 6am with a searing pain in my neck which made it almost impossible to lift my head off the pillow. After much yelping and writhing around, I decided to go to hospital so I could get some drugs for the pain.

Only I could injure myself whilst sleeping.

We decided to walk up through Surry Hills and along Oxford Street to St. Vincent's in Darlinghurst. We'd never ventured that way before or that early and it was, shall we say, interesting seeing another part of town. It's a leafy area and full of cafes in independent shops but a lot more smelly and grubby too and being 7am on a public holiday, the streets were strewn with gurning pill-heads, drunks who had passed out in doorways and empty bottles and rubbish form the night before. A&E was struggling to cope with the influx of party goers and I was told to try the medical centre down the road if I wanted to avoid a four hour wait.

Within 15 minutes, I was being prescribed copious quantities of Valium, Mersyndol and Voltaren by a lovely lady doctor of Greek/English origin who told us all about her upcoming trip to London, growing up there and playing on bomb sites during the Second World War. She also told me to go home and go to bed for the day. I've pulled a muscle apparently.

Dubious that I'd manage a full day of bed rest I nonetheless popped the pills, wrapped a hot wheat bag round my neck and went to bed with a trashy magazine. Within ten minutes I was out and experiencing the best sleep I'd had for weeks. These drugs are good.

No comments: