A touch of Delhi belly in the night!

Actually, it began the night before.  God knows where I picked it up because I wouldn't go into an Indian restaurant if you paid me.  It is, to me, an amazing thing that an itsy-bitsy, titchy, little microbe that you can only spy through a microscope can wreak such havoc to a healthy body.  Anyway, in line with my policy when taken down with a truly serious illness like the dreaded Man Flu, or a dose of the trots, I have instantly taken to my bed.  Fortunately, the 'Memsahib' is only too happy to trot up and down stairs to sooth my fevered brow, although in this case my brow is not the problem!  Anyway, no more blogging today - hopefully I will see you tomorrow.

Comments

[Able]

"It is, to me, an amazing thing that an itsy-bitsy, titchy, little microbe that you can only spy through a microscope can wreak such havoc to a healthy body."

It's more the fact that he brings a few million of his friends with him, not to mention all the kids! The effects are, in this case, not so much caused by the pathogen as by the body going into its 'get it out, get it out!' mode of defence. I'm no microbiologist/virologist but I can hum the tune which is why I am the weirdo walking around with a bottle of alcohol gel hand sanitiser on his belt. The chances are you were simply exposed to someone elses hand-print (you really [no I mean REALLY!] don't want to know what's been found growing on train/bus seat hand-rests, pub bars/tables, or in fact anywhere lots of people touch with their hands - don't even think about public toilet door handles!). Tis the season for Norovirus after all.

I sometimes find it amusing that most of the issues our bodies have with pathogens are not so much with them per se as their excreted products (I did say I was weird!).

Still the immune response is a wonderful, multilayered and complex thing which should in time 'beat the bug'. Just keep drinking the fluids (the only problem a relatively healthy individual has with all these is due to dehydration), and that doesn't mean a single malt (it means juices and that horrible H2O stuff).

Oh, and you may be glad to know that smoking is indicated since it has been shown to be one of the strongest antiemetics around. Just don't be too demanding of Ms Duff or you'll simply reinforce the 'all men are wimps' meme and she'll make you pay for it later (in twenty years she'll still be telling all and sundry about your 'tantrum').

Get well soon!

[David Duff]

Thanks, Able, and as I write this I am happy to say that it is on the way out - in all senses of the phrase! I once read a book which touched on the subject of the immune system and to say that I was gobsmacked is to understate my response by huge amounts. Of course, compared to the ills suffered by so many people my little dose of Delhi belly is barely worth comment but I thought I should advise my regular readers to explain my absence.

[JK]

Oh Heck!

Memsahib and SoD aren't by any chance are they David, muttering anything like, "Oh that damned JK, we're gonna have to demand a refund on that ineffective 'magic elixer from Arkansas' he promised capable even of killing Arkansas' toughest rats" are they?"

Hope not - I already spent the money!

[Hank]

David

Get well and cheer up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNJJN4406y8&feature=player_embedded

[Jimmy Glesga]

David. Bum wipes with aloa vera are helpful. £1 a pack from Morrisons.

[Able]

Glad to hear it!

"I once read a book which touched on the subject of the immune system"

Oh, it's impressive I admit but take a look at the 'elegance' of the Clotting Cascade, or better still the Krebs Cycle (especially the fact that the mitochondria contain bacterial DNA) and you'll understand why scientists, not necessarily those like Dawkins who view the grand sweeping vistas, but those who deal with the nitty-gritty have a 'certain receptiveness' to the idea of a 'guiding hand'.

You don't need to study them, just look at and them (diagrammatically) then imagine the unimaginable complexity, the unbelievable series of 'perfect' coincidences necessary for us to exist at all - my mind is permanently boggled.

[How come no comments on SpaceX and their triumphs? I've already put down a deposit on the first 'Serenity' class ship to be launched]

[JK]

I understand they've awarded some sort of Noble Prize to the EU David - oh, some person in Californis got steamed in a tuna joint in California. There was a miniature people's miniature golf contest pretty close to Atlanta which awarded blue jackets.

I heard there was a lotta shit going on in the UK.

If you read "Drudge" early this AM David - be sure to tell Memsahib and SoD I does best as I's able, I don't ordinarily take into account the regular squirter.

[Andra]

I guess you're back in the land of the living by now but..... if you feel the little critters about to launch another attack at any time, contact me immediately and I will send copious quantities of my favourite brand of toilet paper on the next Qantas aircraft.
Due to my supermarket not always having supplies of my prefered brand in stock I have taken to buying everything they have whenever I see it. Ergo, every nook and cranny in my house is packed to the brim with a very nice 2-ply with nautical pattern, which I have no doubt, will be a great help to you and the poor, down-trodden memsahib.
Keep your pecker up, if possible, and stop ringing that bloody bell for the memsahib.
I can hear the damned thing from here!

[Andra]

Why are we in Italics now?
Is it fashionable?
We don't keep up to date with this sort of stuff in Australia and rely on you for the latest hipster news.

[David Duff]

"Why are we in Italics now?"

Obviously because you-know-who from Arkie-land has discovered how to switch italics on but has yet to master switching them off which means that I have to go and edit his comment! A hundred lines, JK, alternately in italics and plain!

Thank you, Andra, for the toilet paper offer. I, too, like that two-ply stuff, it passes the final test in my experience - it's finger proof!

Able, reading between your lines I suspect we read the same book by Michael Behe! No-one will ever convince me that blood clotting arose by zillions of tiny little incremental steps. On the other hand, nor do I accept the Intelligent Designer. The answer, like so many of life's mysteries, seems to reside in mathematics. It is explained in just sufficient clarity for a maths failure like me to follow by Richard J. Bird in his book Chaos and Life and it seems more convincing that anything else I have read.

Jimmy, thank you, too, for your toilet paper recommendation and I shall mention it to the Memsahib, the supplier of all creature comforts.

Hank, that gave me the best laugh for the entire weekend. Apart from anything else I thought, until I saw the YouTube, that all the truly brain-dead lived in the UK!

Anyway, my friends, I went for a swim this morning - a very, very gentle one - and now I am knacked! My trots are over but I haven't eaten a single thing for 48 hours so my energy is zero. Back to bed for a nap and then I will return later today.

[ortega]

Best wishes. And don't worry. As we say here: mala hierba nunca muere.

[David Duff]

Gracias, Ortega, and the truth of that very wise Spanish saying can be seen in my garden daily!
(mala hierba nunca muere: weed never dies)

[Able]

Ah, no.

I'm afraid it was a consequence of my 'training' (try memorising not only the cascade but systemic, dietary and pharmacological effects on it - not fun!).

I shall endeavour to obtain copies (More homework? You're not going to test us on it at the end of term are you?)

[David Duff]

Test you? Not bloody likely! Actually, I don't think the book will amaze you the way it did me because you have medical training. To me, back in 1996 when I first read it, it was a jaw-dropper. As I indicated above, he argues a good case for an Intelligent Designer but it failed to convince me. Bird's book did but that could be because I am deeply in awe of anyone who can do 'sums'!

[Lawrence Duff]

Here's a cure for your Delhi belly - paratrooper or no paratrooper!

SoD

[David Duff]

Typical 2 Para jump, I'd say, wouldn't have put up with that sort of thing in 3 Para!

[JK]

I see now your background is far more complex and, uhm, ?laudable? than merely being an ex-Corporal and a second hand car swapper. I always wondered at that post you put up touting your latrine duty. I take it that not only should I be reading D&N for your prose, I needs must read the UK's Sanitation Department's missives.

Your's DD?

"“We want to make shit sexy - make talking about shit possible,”

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/london-sanitation-exhibit-aims-to-make-poo-a-hot-topic/