Although I try and take pride in my appearance, I would tend not to regard myself as vain or in any way precious about my appearance. In this world of self imagery, high speed transactions and 140 character assassinations, the way we look affects the way people feel about us.

In my mind, there is little relationship between hair style and personality but perhaps in some way it does betray personal style and taste. I thought I would be prepared for hair loss, in fact it was the only symptom the doctors were sure about, but even so, watching your hair fall out in clumps as it has over the last 48 hours does bring with it a certain level of anxiety and self-reflection.

Otherwise the last few days have been fairly un-eventful. I’m now waiting for all my platelets and white blood cells to restore to acceptable levels. It was also confirmed from a swab of my throat that I had contracted ‘influenza A’ – incidentally the variant of flu that is not covered in this years’ flu jab and which the chap in the cubical next to me also had (we were sharing a bathroom, so I was less surprised than the nurses at this outcome!) I seem to have coped fairly well with it though, apart from a sore throat and generally feeling unwell, I can say I’ve had much worse with a fully functioning immune system, although I expect the course of intravenous antibiotics and tamiflu probably helped.

I also reached the end of my course of hydration. The relief from the beeping and clicking of the pumps and having to unplug and wheel around the stand each time I went to the toilet or shower was a greater relief than I had expected.

It’s surprising how used to performing a task regularly you get (especially when it’s every 2 hours for 5 days) that you forget how annoying and restricting the task in fact is. I’m sure I’ll re-asses some of my other daily habits when I return to normality!