That Guy: Courage the only cure in battle with manfluenza

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Opinion

I had a headache that I could also feel in my feet.

I would like to begin this column by welcoming myself back, not just to the typewriter but also from the dead. My absence from the paper last week was explained by a euphemistic statement that I was "ill".

This is certainly true, but to explain this rare case of manfluenza as an illness is understating it. During the Dark Ages, if somebody had the plague I doubt whether those burning his rotting body would say: "We thought we would burn him, his house and all his possessions because he was a little ill."

And if I could just set the record straight further - although I did tell a couple of people that I was technically dead for 15 seconds - I am clearly not dead now, so I don't want any rumours of my death circulating around the country, even if, technically, I was the one who started those rumours.

I am sure I don't need to explain to any readers - certainly not male readers - how serious manfluenza or man-flu can be. But what was so different with my case? Well, it was far more serious.

The symptoms began to show early last Friday morning. I had a headache that I could also feel in my feet, I was lethargic and had an insuppressible urge to lie in bed and watch The History Channel.

Breakfast in bed did little to pick up my energy levels, so it was then that I knew I was in for the long haul, and that as a family we should prepare for the worst.

Over the phone, my doctor prescribed a couple of Panadol and plenty of water but this was going to be difficult as my bedroom was at the far end of the house.

My wife did her best to help but she had trouble understanding me through my wheezy cough, and without proper training she was, quite frankly, right out of her depth.

For a time I fought on bravely, as is the code of man, but after about 45 minutes even I had to accept that my only chance of survival was to bring in the experts.

I checked my emails and then Googled my symptoms online. It wasn't long before my worst fears were confirmed: It seemed that my symptoms correlated with a rare strain of monkey virus that had mutated and bred with the manfluenza virus, making a super-retro manfluenza virus.

The monkey virus came from a primate called a tarsier. They are small monkeys with big googly eyes, and from the look of my eyes I was in the first stage of changing into one.

Having established what my condition was, I checked Trade Me to see if there were any bids on a broken bread-maker I was trying to sell, and then searched for a cure. It became clear that nobody wanted the bread-maker and that I would need to travel to the United States to get treatment for my illness, as they were conducting some radical clinical trials over there.

Apparently, this strain of manfluenza could not be attacked by any antibiotics known to man, so the disease needed to be turned on itself.

Just as anti-venom is made from snake's venom, infected blood would need to be extracted from my body and synthetically engineered, mixed with tarsier blood and cobra venom, and then injected back into my body on a thrice-daily basis for up to two years. Even then there was no guarantee that the cure would work.

Just as I was about to sign up to the $250,000 trial programme, I miraculously began to feel slightly better. The headache faded, then the upset stomach, and before long I had the strength to take the takeaway curry boxes into the kitchen and get a glass of water. I certainly wasn't 100 per cent but my recovery was nothing short of a miracle.

I contacted the Tarsier Monkey Virus research centre and offered them a sample of my blood to assist in their battle to find a cure. If my struggle and pain could help just one person, then what I went through would have been worthwhile. That is part of the code of being a man.