On Getting an Infection

This week I've been laid up in bed for most of the week. I came down with what I think was a virus over the weekend. In fact I think it hit on Friday last week and I slowly went downhill until by Saturday evening I was completely out of it. Went to bed 11-ish on Saturday and didn't really get up again until Tuesday night, finally got dressed for the first time on Thursday. It wasn't flu (I don't think) as I didn't have any sort of temperature, to be honest I'm not really sure what it was.

Late last week and over the weekend when I went to drink anything, especially first thing in the morning, I found it really hard to swallow, to the extent that sometimes I'd drink and I'd feel the water coming back out my nose. Just a drop of water but still not pleasant. Obviously this was happening because my throat was closing up and stopping me swallowing. I'd also have that taste of puss whenever I eat, which is now slowly going away (again) which tells me I had a throat infection.

The question in my mind is, what caused what? Was my throat closing because I had an infection which spread to my throat. Or, did I have a throat infection which caused me to feel ill (as well as stopping me swallowing). I have a feeling it was the later.

I was also ill for longer than I'd expect, and not just unwell but completely flattened. I think I can say that my immune system is not compromised, I've not had chemotherapy and I've not been told to steer clear of anyone who is ill. However I'm still in 'recovery' mode, it's only weeks since I ended radiotherapy and I still get tired easily which I assume is why I'm going to take a while to get over illnesses. Also, I've had the lymph nodes in my neck removed, lymph nodes help to fight infection but as there are some 500-600 in the body (according to Wikipedia) I don't think removing the few in my neck is going to cause a huge difference.

I've been lucky (actually,don't talk to me about luck!) since I've been diagnosed in that I haven't picked up any other illnesses, that also means though that I have nothing to judge this week against; if I get an illness over the next few months will I take a lot longer to heal than 'normal'? or was last week just a one off?