Sicknote Time

Since August I've had the Olympics, the Para-Olympics and the opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). This is all against the backdrop of the ongoing war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups.

The war in particular triggers off something similar to the fight or flight response in me. So adrenaline gets produced, muscles tighten and pulse rate and blood pressure increase. The problem is that I neither get to fight nor flee. Instead I get to spend my time hunched over a computer in a darkened room.

All the extra work of course leaves me feeling tired so I compensate with high caffeine, high sugar energy drinks. Working longer means staying up later which in turn means more cigarettes and more sugary and salty junk food.

In short I've somewhat wrecked my health.

On September 22nd (22/9/16) I went for a routine appointment with my doctor. A standard part of this is having my blood pressure tested. It turns out that doctors don't like their patients seeing their test results while they themselves are still trying to work out what they mean. So I don't actually know what my blood pressure was. However I did catch a glimpse of it at one point and the top number was over 200. This seemed to trigger a sharp intake of breath as my doctor decided whether to perform the test again or have me admitted to a cardiac ward as a precaution.

Fortunately the frankly coven of black women stopped shouting questions at me about my testicles the test was performed again. This time the top number came down to around 170 which is at the top end of the normal range and I was free to leave.

Ideally what I would have liked to have done is take a week or two off entirely where deciding what to have for dinner would be the most stressful part of my day. However with that not being an option I'm currently in a situation where if I'm faced with a choice between doing something complicated and stressful or simply not I have to choose not to do it.

In a way this is rather frustrating because the other day I found myself becoming really bored. However it did take me a little while to remember what bored felt like.

14:30 on 12/10/16 (UK date).