So far, 2011 hasn’t shaped up all that well. I started the year feeling a bit peaky, and I blogged it, thinking to myself - well, it’s been a while since I had a proper cold, perhaps I should mark the occasion so I can look back in three years when I next get one and remember it better.

Silly girl.

I even made the mistake of saying:

I don’t mind being ill so much, because I always think no matter how bad I feel, it can never be as bad as those two weeks post-Silverstone.

The universe looked up, narrowed a quizzical eye at me and agreed: “That’s true, you haven’t been properly unwell for a few years. Let’s rectify that now.”

Bam.

I woke up at midnight last Wednesday and I thought that was the end. I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t breathe, I was hot, I was cold, my skin was sore against everything it touched, and every part of me ached.

Mr C considered an ambulance, but we went the NHS Direct route instead, like the conscientious citizens we are. They told us to open a window.

Actually, she asked me the same questions over and over, made me feel like I was over-reacting to nothing more than a cold, and advised: “Open the window for some fresh air, try a hot drink and a cold compress.”

Which is good advice. For the 1900s. I was sort of hoping medicine had moved on since then.

Turns out, it has, but clearly no one has told the NHS. I bow down to the gods of Sudafed.

I’ll spare you the nauseating detail of each of my symptoms and how I am slowly climbing the hill to recovery, but suffice it to say, it’s the illest I’ve ever been.

With just over a week to go before leaving my job, I had to call in sick. Repeatedly. Returning to work this week, they had all come to the conclusion that I’d given up working my notice and left already.

Thankfully I came back with plenty enough coughing to prove them all wrong. Tomorrow is my last day, and then I am facing a bright new future where the world is my oyster.

If I can just find the energy for it.