Feeling Ill

I don't get sick normally. Really I don't, I'm one of these absurdly immune types who will get the occasional cold and snuffle but nothing that ever requires an extended period off work for fear of infecting everyone else on the planet. Serious issues like Gallstones aside, I eschew medicine to the extent that for seven years at the turn of the decade I wasn't even registered with a doctor. I just never saw the need.

This may be why the events of the last few days came as such a shock, more so given the out of the blue onset of my symptoms. Thursday was a day just like any other to start with, my regular midweek day off which I generally spend computing, catching up on endless amounts of TV, popping downstairs to the gym and then heading off to Canary Wharf for a bit in the afternoon. All this I did as per routine and it wasn't until the very end of the day that it was clear something was amiss.

I emerged from the bathroom and felt cold. Insanely, unbearably cold. So much so in fact that I began shivering uncontrollably with every muscle on my body trembling violently. I quickly slipped under the covers and felt the feeling subside, but wondered just what the consequences would be in the morning.

I soon discovered. It was like someone had clothed me in a brick wall. Every movement seemed to be an effort and my normal 8am boundless energy had been replaced by an overwhelming urge to spend the rest of the morning sleeping. Needless to say this was not an option. I had two live football matches to put on the air over the course of the weekend and had to spend most of Friday assembling running orders and knocking together production stabs from the dry lines that had been supplied to me by upstairs. I hauled myself into the shower and worked to shake the cobwebs away. Once I was dressed and groomed things didn't feel so bad, and so armed with a pocketful of Beechams Hot Berry, I set out for work.

The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. I alternated between sitting at my desk assembling the Saturdays show on my laptop and crashing out on the big leather hospitality sofas that sit just inside the door to the office. Nobody really batted an eyelid, the sight of people sitting flipping through the papers whilst having a cup of tea is a common one, but this time I wasn't just chilling in the atmosphere of the office, I was mentally steeling myself to rise out of my seat and complete the next task. My one overriding motivation was that every task completed was another step closer to collapsing into bed.

At 5pm it was all over and I could go home, but this was where it became clear that my energy levels were zero. The five minute walk from the office to the tube station became a marathon, my normal enthusiastic strides reduced to a geriatric shuffle. Walking up the road to the flat from the DLR station was a similar story. The trains run every eight minutes at that time of the evening, and I was not even halfway down the road from the station before the next train thundered overhead.

So the next morning I woke up a certified invalid. I was coughing every two minutes, I had no energy at all and just wanted to sleep. So I did what any sensible person would do in this situation.

I got up and went to work.

Call it sheer bloody mindedness, call it overwhelming dedication to the cause, call it what you will. All I knew is that to phone up and arrange cover, at the same time directing people where to find the preparation for the live football commentary and what feature went where would be just as time consuming as actually going to do it myself. What I was relying on was a shot of broadcasting adrenaline to get me through. All performers will know what I mean. When you are in the studio, totally focused on the job in hand and above all doing what you love doing ahead of everything else, the normal rules of physics do not apply. Time races by at five times the normal speed, you find you are capable of levels of concentration that defy everything you are taught about human ability. Most importantly of all, your mind shuts away the symptoms of any disease or virus you may have for the duration of the programme.

It mostly worked as well. Sitting down at my desk and opening up the laptop, I was instantly in the zone, one which lasted for most of the next six hours. Sure there were dodgy moments, the quiet periods of the live game in which nothing much was happening meant that the realisation of just what I was putting myself through would be allowed to hit and it suddenly became an effort to drag myself back from the brink and push the show forward to its next segment. I knew I was going to make it to the end, the only question was at what personal cost? Producing a live football commentary you see involves a great deal of shouting. Not in anger or in frustration, but simply so you can make yourself heard in the ears of the commentator over the roar of the crowd at the game he is broadcasting. After 90 minutes of bellowing "GOAL ARSENAL" or "UPDATE SUNDERLAND" my throat was raw with pain, pain that even lozenges were not soothing.

I don't think I've ever left the building after the show as quickly as I did that day, even though the walk up the road to the station was as slow and as painful as ever before. I collapsed on the sofa, ready to be fed endless cups of tea by a frowning "I told you to stay at home" Mila and contemplated what action I could take on Sunday.

I surely couldn't not go could I? This was the Carling Cup Final and I'd been specifically asked to be in the office to ensure that the whole event passed off smoothly. If I'd dragged myself to work for the Premier League show the previous day, surely I would not be able to excuse myself from the day of a big cup final. In the end though I just couldn't face it. I phoned in to the office and left a message for the producer of the Sunday afternoon show to call me, breaking the news to him ten minutes later that the guru of live sport on commercial radio would not be gracing the office with his presence that day. Like it or not, he was flying the programme solo.

Watching the final itself was an odd experience, and I don't think it was due to my ever rising temperature. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn’t watching a major football game from the radio control room, squinting up at the small television monitors that hang from the ceiling in order to follow the action. Instead I was watching from the point of view of a dispassionate neutral fan, wrapped up in a dressing gown on the sofa, the only thing missing being the can of beer, replaced instead by something hot and honey tasting that Mila had placed in front of me. Still, whenever something important happened I couldn't resist flipping over to the radio station just to hear the reaction of our commentators and how we reacted to things like the late penalty that took the game to extra time.

I called in sick on Monday and woke up Tuesday to find that my voice was reduced to little more than a croak. The worst is over, I can walk around without wanting to die but it seems that the symptoms and consequences of my actions over the weekend are set to stick around a little while longer. So if you have been a victim of "there's a lot of it going around" this past week or so, you have my every sympathy. I know just how it feels. Feel good about the fact that you don’t work in broadcasting, a world where suck it up and get on with it is so much part of the culture, I'm still dealing with the guilt of missing the game on Sunday.