All I can drink is Coca Cola..

Long story short: I have 'Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease' (HFMD). 

Short story, slightly long: 

• Thursday - Migraine
• Friday - Migraine & 39 degree fever
• Saturday - Migraine & 39 degree fever
• Sunday - No migraine, no fever, but severe throat pain.. tonsillitis? Doctor at the walk-in centre gave me penicillin. 2 hours later, big blister-like spots appear on my hands.
• Monday 5am - in absolute agony, cannot swallow, cough or yawn without the reflex cutting short due to pain (like withholding yawns with cracked/broken ribs). 6am in Accident & Emergency, diagnosed with HFMD. Apparently nothing other than painkillers that can be taken as it's viral and needs to run its course.
• Monday - 1:15pm in the GP's office who cannot believe I have HFMD as 'it is only ever this severe in children.. and I've never seen it in someone's throat before'.. how reassuring. My throat is apparently ravaged by blisters and open sores, and have spread onto my tonsils too.. no wonder I'm in agony. At this time it's worth noting that I protested my struggles with the 24hour limit on cocodomol 30mg/500mg and ibuprofen, but there is nothing to be done.. My feet now give me pins-and-needles pains with every step as the soles of my feet are lined with red spots and blisters, as is my face and inside my nostrils.
• Tuesday 2am - Repeat of Monday's nighttime woes.
• Tuesday 3pm - I discover that Coca-Cola helps to numb the pain in my throat! Amazing!! I am able to eat something for the first time since Friday, a cup of soup sachet. It strips away all the good the coke did and I'm back to square 1 with pain but at least I've eaten something..
• I remember this article I read: http://goo.gl/AVJN10 where an African doctor used sugar to treat open wounds, perhaps there's some method to the madness?
• Oh by the way, difflam (used as a direct spray to help numb the pain from tonsillitis) is about as useful as someone trying to speed up their computer by splitting their single hard drive into 2 RAID 0 partitions. Or for the non-techy people, a chocolate fireguard.
• Tuesday - I run out of ibuprofen and I'm in for one of the worst days of my life in pain management. Night time is the worst, I can only take 4 lots of the cocodomol and ibuprofen, and 4 hours after taking it, it's like being hit by a train between your ears and neck. I wake up at night like clockwork writhing in agony, moaning while my wife looks on sympathetically, she can't do anything to help because I'm so contagious I'm sleeping on the couch.

And here we are today, Wednesday. I've visited who I now call 'The Silent Doctor'.. I don't think I need to describe how that meeting went. I walked out with a prescription for a stronger anti-inflammatory and a very condescending reaction to my protests of pain.

The worst thing about this is that I don't think medical professionals realize how much pain this is causing me, on the NHS website it doesn't even say that adults can get HFMD, let alone how to treat or manage it.

If anyone else out there is struggling with something similar, perhaps give ice-cold Coca-Cola in very small sips a go, it may take a few mouthfuls but it can give you 10-15 minutes of blissful 6/10 pain rather than the usual 9 or 10. Dairy milk, completely dissolved in a lot of saliva and gently swallowed has allowed me to eat something.. but this is better than absolutely nothing.

Thank goodness HFMD kills the appetite, otherwise 1 meal in 5 days would be making me crazy.

Day 36: Habits broken?

36 days without playing computer games. Well, almost.

After the withdrawal of just sitting for hours staring at the same 6 websites on different tabs, I've re-joined my local 24-hour gym and I'm going near enough 4 times a week now. I did spent in total around 6 hours playing games since my last update - a total I think that's very acceptable considering what I was shifting before - well over 6 hours a DAY.

My studies towards becoming a DBA (Database Administrator) are progressing at a pace I am happy with and I've actually lost a little weight. I'm looking to join my local rugby team now as my next step towards making some proper friends near where I live.

As I've mentioned in a previous blog, the hardest part is missing my friends that I used to play games with. The conversations with Br0k3n and Spaniards but mostly Jesterling, my Swedish buddy who would spend hours playing Smite with me. I hope all is well, Jesterling? And of course the many others of iCU who I would speak to almost every day.

I've actually taken a look at the Royal Marines Commando fitness tests and I'm using them as a goal to work towards in my free time. I actually look forward to going to the gym now, I'm not 'sacrificing' gaming time like I used to - I recognize going to the gym IS leisure time, not a chore.

This morning was my first attempt at the first 2.4km run in under 12m 30s on a 2% incline, and I failed miserably and walked a big portion and finished at 17m 53s. My doctor's appointment was straight afterwards and it turns out I have sinusitis - no wonder it was so hard to breathe.

Apologies if this blog seems a bit of a ramble, but what I take from this is that I don't see my life revolving around games now, and my documentation of me not playing them any more seems much less of an obligation. That said, I feel I have control now - I am going to install Steam and re-download Call of Duty and play one of the single-player campaigns, safely knowing that I can stop it at any time.

I know what the killer is for me and that's online gaming, I'm never going to touch that again.

Day 5: Nothing productive has happened.. yet

When I first made the decision to delete all my games and to consciously try to not be drawn back to them, I thought I'd see a fairly quick journey into 'normality' by stereotypical family standards.

I would be going shopping after work for the groceries, spending my days off cycling around the local countryside with my family and even helping with the washing up after dinner.

I've actually spent more time on my mobile phone in the past 5 days than I think I have in the past 5 months. Candy Crush Saga and The Simpsons Tapped Out are my methadone to my PC gaming heroin. I can take solace in that these games can only be played so much that they become boring. I hope.

My mind seems to be subconsciously pouring itself into these trivial yet familiar diversions in an effort to not have to deal directly with the great void that has been left in my life by removing my only remaining past-time. I don't miss any particular 'game', I'm not itching to beat people at Smite or build a character on another MMORPG, it's the habit of when there is nothing critical to be done (eat, drink, toilet), I would trundle off to the computer room and pretend to study.

My PC has never been so well-maintained, 9-year old word files have gone and I've almost completely categorized my 30gb+ of family photos. I would imagine that me tinkering away on this machine is what it's like for someone who is giving up smoking to inhale second-hand smoke - I'm only a couple of clicks away from having a triple-A game installed and fired up with 5 people to chat with online. So close, so tempting. Got a light?

Day 4: Quitting computer games is like quitting drinking by dropping a nuke on the pub whilst all your best friends are inside.

I actually spent a good 3-4 minutes pacing up and down in my bedroom today while my fiance studied her accountancy bits and pieces, not knowing what to do with myself. It's not the games themselves I miss, it's the sociability (or lack thereof), of being online with people you know and that you can have a laugh with. Uninstalling all your computer games in this day and age is not quite as straight forward as locking away your Nintendo 15 years ago was.

I'm realizing now that, to some degree, I need to practically rebuild my life. A social life built around bits and bytes with people from all around the world needs to be substituted by real human contact and real hobbies - of which I have a fond memory from when I last gave up games 8 years ago!

It's not the same as giving up drinking, or smoking, because you can still speak with the same people - you can still go to the pub and you CAN just order an orange juice. Quitting computer games is like quitting drinking by dropping a nuke on the pub whilst all your best friends are inside.

I'm deleting all my computer games..

By the time I checked the clock, 4 hours had passed and I realize I'd wasted another day that I can't get back. I haven't helped clean up the kitchen or tidy up after my son has gone to bed and my missus is exhausted from a full day of Anthony-fueled hyperactivity.

Today I came to the sudden realization that computer games have taken up a large amount of my adult life, and I could be doing so much more worthwhile things than playing them. It's not enough for me to just 'stop playing', it's so easy to launch Teamspeak (voice chat like Skype) and speak with your friends that you've known for years and all start playing some games together in a relaxed and fun way. 

So, much to the dismay of my close online friends from www.icugaming.co.uk, I've started the process of deleting every single computer game on my PC. 

I'm not even safe from games such as Frontier Elite 2, released in 1993. I remember when this game arrived in the house when my father bought it very soon after it came out. He was a fan of the original game, Elite, whereas I got more into this.

I am telling you now, it takes up 20% of my monitor space but I could play this right now for 9 hours in a row if I was left to my own devices. 9 hours of staring at a square no bigger than my hand contributing ultimately to absolutely nothing other than to my increasingly bad metabolism.

I'm planning to start posting regular blogs to chart my progress, as I firmly believe I have a deep-set addiction that goes back to childhood and it needs sorting out. I have a day off tomorrow, 18+ hours awake without firing a laser or killing a fellow internet gaming person on my screen in this room. I don't know how it's going to work out..