The latest reason for why I couldn't sleep began when I woke up. By definition this is usually where sleeplessness starts. I was still underneath the covers then so all I had known of this reason-to- be was an absent-minded itch.
It was not until I got out of bed and looked in the mirror that the small-time itch revealed itself as a welt on my stomach. And on close inspection it became clear the welt was in all likelihood the flesh- eating Ebola virus.
"Well that's super," I said out loud. "As if I don't have enough on my plate."
Which is an idiom implying a person is already very busy and does not have time to deal with such things, just the same as "jumping to conclusions" is an idiom implying a person reaches an answer without access to all the relevant facts.
Google will sort that out for you these days. It is a bottomless pit of information and within minutes of typing in my symptom I found out I did not have Ebola after all.
Rather, it was far more likely I was wracked with typhoid, riddled with malaria or possibly even in the final stages of AIDS.
It all made me feel a bit glum so I decided to come up with a less gruesome diagnosis of my own.
I instantly dismissed eczema as too common, hot tub folliculitis as too unlikely and athlete's foot as incorrectly located, and so ring worm was the obvious choice.
Despite what many people think ring worm is not a worm but a fungal infection that presents itself as a small ring on the surface of the skin. My affliction was definitely on my skin and certainly ringish, though admittedly only in the way a necklace, being of the jewellery family, is ringish.
This diagnosis was a small relief as owing to having a kitten and therefore previous experience with ring worm, I had access to the appropriate medicine.
I didn't really know what it was called but did know my girlfriend kept it on her dresser along with her perfumes, hair products and other bottles of things I cannot begin to understand the necessity of.
Bear in mind this ring worm diagnosis and treatment option came to me at approximately 3.26am and led to me leaping out of bed with an unnecessary and perhaps misguided enthusiasm.
In the dim light provided by my pathetic eco-bulbs I found the most medicinal-looking container and squeezed out some of its cream to smear on the welt. This I did at regular intervals for the next couple of days before actually taking the time to carefully read the outside of the tube.
Which was when I realised I was in fact using the haemorrhoid cream we had bought to treat our chicken Dorothy when a particularly large egg left her laying apparatus in some disrepair.
In hindsight I should have known a cream called Anusol was probably not the right fix for ring worm. Then again, it didn't appear to hurt it and after a few more days of using the correct cream the itchy welt seemed to be subsiding.
Which was about the time I was told, with some conviction, my ring worm could not possibly be ring worm but was rather a reaction to the bite of a white tail spider.
I'm not sure when it started but white tail spiders are blamed for almost everything wrong in the world these days. And while I agreed they were without a doubt responsible for the global economic collapse, North Korea's ongoing belligerence and the Christchurch earthquakes, I could not saddle them with my welt.
Because, ask anyone who really knows, and they will tell you a white tail spider is generally harmless and responsible for only a small fraction of the bites people attribute to them.
"People just jump to conclusions," say the experts.
Needless to say that will not stop those jumping types from killing white tail spiders with a perverse ferocity in the belief they are ridding the world of some unnatural evil.
So it is not inconceivable that my anxiety over the plight of the white tale spider as a species replaced my ringish-shaped stomach itch as the main cause of my sleepless nights.
Because, as thoughts tend to do, it led me to an equal concern over the imminent extinction of the Siberian tiger, the impact my cats were having on the weta population in Brooklands and that the new chicken coop I had built had serious design flaws.
Such as a door that did not close quite as it should and a ramp so steep it prevented my three chooks descending from their roosts each morning. They were stuck.
On Wednesday night it caused me enough concern that I went to check if being stuck on their roosts prevented them from sleeping at night as it would have me.
It didn't but the visit gave me a chance to get the Anusol out of the house and into the coop where it belonged. It was one less thing to worry about.
- Taranaki Daily News
It was not until I got out of bed and looked in the mirror that the small-time itch revealed itself as a welt on my stomach. And on close inspection it became clear the welt was in all likelihood the flesh- eating Ebola virus.
"Well that's super," I said out loud. "As if I don't have enough on my plate."
Which is an idiom implying a person is already very busy and does not have time to deal with such things, just the same as "jumping to conclusions" is an idiom implying a person reaches an answer without access to all the relevant facts.
Google will sort that out for you these days. It is a bottomless pit of information and within minutes of typing in my symptom I found out I did not have Ebola after all.
Rather, it was far more likely I was wracked with typhoid, riddled with malaria or possibly even in the final stages of AIDS.
It all made me feel a bit glum so I decided to come up with a less gruesome diagnosis of my own.
I instantly dismissed eczema as too common, hot tub folliculitis as too unlikely and athlete's foot as incorrectly located, and so ring worm was the obvious choice.
Despite what many people think ring worm is not a worm but a fungal infection that presents itself as a small ring on the surface of the skin. My affliction was definitely on my skin and certainly ringish, though admittedly only in the way a necklace, being of the jewellery family, is ringish.
This diagnosis was a small relief as owing to having a kitten and therefore previous experience with ring worm, I had access to the appropriate medicine.
I didn't really know what it was called but did know my girlfriend kept it on her dresser along with her perfumes, hair products and other bottles of things I cannot begin to understand the necessity of.
Bear in mind this ring worm diagnosis and treatment option came to me at approximately 3.26am and led to me leaping out of bed with an unnecessary and perhaps misguided enthusiasm.
In the dim light provided by my pathetic eco-bulbs I found the most medicinal-looking container and squeezed out some of its cream to smear on the welt. This I did at regular intervals for the next couple of days before actually taking the time to carefully read the outside of the tube.
Which was when I realised I was in fact using the haemorrhoid cream we had bought to treat our chicken Dorothy when a particularly large egg left her laying apparatus in some disrepair.
In hindsight I should have known a cream called Anusol was probably not the right fix for ring worm. Then again, it didn't appear to hurt it and after a few more days of using the correct cream the itchy welt seemed to be subsiding.
Which was about the time I was told, with some conviction, my ring worm could not possibly be ring worm but was rather a reaction to the bite of a white tail spider.
I'm not sure when it started but white tail spiders are blamed for almost everything wrong in the world these days. And while I agreed they were without a doubt responsible for the global economic collapse, North Korea's ongoing belligerence and the Christchurch earthquakes, I could not saddle them with my welt.
Because, ask anyone who really knows, and they will tell you a white tail spider is generally harmless and responsible for only a small fraction of the bites people attribute to them.
"People just jump to conclusions," say the experts.
Needless to say that will not stop those jumping types from killing white tail spiders with a perverse ferocity in the belief they are ridding the world of some unnatural evil.
So it is not inconceivable that my anxiety over the plight of the white tale spider as a species replaced my ringish-shaped stomach itch as the main cause of my sleepless nights.
Because, as thoughts tend to do, it led me to an equal concern over the imminent extinction of the Siberian tiger, the impact my cats were having on the weta population in Brooklands and that the new chicken coop I had built had serious design flaws.
Such as a door that did not close quite as it should and a ramp so steep it prevented my three chooks descending from their roosts each morning. They were stuck.
On Wednesday night it caused me enough concern that I went to check if being stuck on their roosts prevented them from sleeping at night as it would have me.
It didn't but the visit gave me a chance to get the Anusol out of the house and into the coop where it belonged. It was one less thing to worry about.
- Taranaki Daily News
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