Tonsillitis!

So I dragged myself off to the Tooting NHS Walk-in Centre this afternoon, since I'd tried all the home remedies I could find on the net and nothing was working. It wasn't fun, catching a bus and walking in the cold and the rain while you're sick, but I got there in the end. It's a strange setup - you go and tell the receptionist what's wrong with you, then you fill in a form with your address and stuff and what's wrong with you; then you wait (about an hour, today) and then you're called and you tell someone else what's wrong with you. Then, it turns out, that isn't the nurse - you have to go back to the waiting room and wait for the nurse to call you! Luckily for me it was pretty quick, I'd practically just sat down before I was called again. The nurse was very nice, and it turns out that I have acute tonsillitis. This surprised me, rather, because I had my tonsils out when I was four or five years old! But apparently the tissue bed can still get infected.

It's a pretty generic term, though - basically it's just an infection, and it could be viral or bacterial. They gave me antibiotics, and 2 hours later I can actually swallow without flinching, which is amazing! The effect might wear off later, I guess, but for now it's such a relief to be able to swallow and drink with minimal pain (not no pain, but it is greatly reduced).

I'm suprised that I got tonsillitis at my age, as well - but then there were a whole lot of little monsters on the plane and the coach and the hotel in Lapland, and it's quite possible I picked it up from one of them. One of the less enjoyable souveniers of the trip, I guess.