Hick-ley

I'm working in a absolute shit-hole called Hinckley for 4 weeks. It's okay for me to say that because the locals describe it that way to me. There is nothing here and nothing to do here. The locals that I've interacted with have been unfriendly, uncompromising, uninspired masses of talking flesh. The majority of my patients have been okay, although most of them aren't from Hinckley and wisely live anywhere but here.

I'm staying in a "hotel" now. I was staying at a B&B's before but changed location - the kind folk at the company's head-office thought I would be content with eating take-out every night... as of course B&B's have no cooking facilities. So now I'm staying in a meagre room that smells like wet sick, with a TV that barely screens anything but static. There is a fridge and a microwave in the room though, so at least I don't have to resort to take-out and I don't have to go grocery shopping every day.

Other than that, I've been constantly ill since arriving in this dismal town. Apparently everyone is ill or has been ill with the same illness. People call it the Hinckley Flu. I've been coughing up many different shades of phlegm and fragments from the lower lobes of my lungs. I went through a period of fever and malaise, and my throat was so sore and inflamed that it felt like there was not even an orifice through which to swallow. The receptionists commented that I sound poorly. I said "I think it's Hinckley," in jest.
"You could be right," they replied. "There have been other doctors working here that have had to quit because every time they come here they get ill." And there it is.

This is certainly one of the most challenging jobs of my last year. It is a time of physical, chemical and emotional stress. Pagan gods give me strengths.