CoCo - my friend!

CoCodamol, that is. Codeine and paracetomol - a marriage made in pharmaceutical heaven!

I think it's prescription-only back in the UK (and not freely available at all in the US?), and is mostly used for the relief of "post-operative discomfort" - i.e., to try to keep you happy when you're in way more pain than you ought to be because you've been clumsily butchered by an incompetent junior surgeon. I became a big fan of them after first a rather botched knee op and then an excruciatingly painful tonsillectomy in the early '90s.

Last night, ransacking my ill-catalogued collection of medicines in a panic as I contemplated a night of no-sleep-at-all, I turned up a brown paper bag full of the lovely things. Regular codeine just wasn't working at all any more, but with CoCo I feel almost like a normal human being again.

And, perhaps even more importantly - from the point of view of actually getting better rather than simply being too narcotised to care any more - I found a dozen tabs of penicillin hidden in the midst of my chaotic drug stash as well.

Thanks to these two finds, I have managed nearly 12 hours of (fitful) sleep. I am now feeling much better, thank you. I still feel absolutely TERRIBLE, but that is much better than last night.

Alas, I shall use up all the penicillin by tomorrow. And I don't want to deplete my emergency store of CoCo too much. So I may have to venture out to a local pharmacy later, to see if I can buy this kind of thing over the counter.

I am still desperately trying to avoid a trip to the doctor's - which would, I know: irritate the crap out of me; not make me better any quicker (assuming I can buy some antibiotics over the counter); and cost me money I don't have (or can't afford/don't want to spend). Keeping everything crossed.

Time for another hot brine gargle (damn - I wish I had some soluble aspirin as well!), and then a nice honey-cloves-and-baijiu hot toddy, I think.