Well...I've had some sleep so I can now post in a slightly more focused fashion.

First off, thanks to everyone who has shown support, either through the comments box, or via personal emails - it's all gratefully received. It looks like I'm going to have to find something else to die from now.

Tomorrow my brother and I shall be going for a nice relaxing drink, the first proper pub visit in over three months - there may well be a hangover involved.

I only had to wait 45 minutes at the 'clap clinic' for the test result - pretty hard to stay awake, but I think the emotional numbness that comes with exhaustion only helped me deal with the wait. The 'consultation' was over in less than 15 seconds - led into a room, asked to sit down and then being told by a shaved head counsellor that everything was fine. I didn't have a massive flood of emotion (possibly due to the aforementioned exhaustion), but afterwards I sat on a stone outside the hospital, rang my mum and brother, text messaged my old crewmate and breathed a sigh of relief. (Old crewmate told me that I had to go and repopulate Newham - something I don't think I'll be doing quite yet...)

Last night was exceptionally busy - I think I waved at the station once as we drove past. We were bounced from job to job; we only got back to the station at around 5am, and then copped a late job out of area. This had an effect on our sense of humour, as a lack of caffeine is not healthy for ambulance personnel.

This lack of humour wasn't helped by one of our jobs; a woman called us from out of area (and remember, we were one of only two motors covering the area) because she was feeling dizzy - she'd had a couple of glasses of wine, felt dizzy and so had drunk a few more glasses - and began feeling more dizzy. Also with her was her drunk husband and their child of about 6 years old. This was at 2am. I noticed that they had an accent, so asked where they were from.

Portugal.

(For those not in Europe, last night our national football team was knocked out of the European tournament by the Portuguese, aided by a Swiss referee who was quite blatantly as blind as a bat)

Ho-hum.

For some reason there wasn't that much violence following the game, and no suicide attempts either. No 'proper' illness or 'trauma' either, with patients able to walk on and off the ambulance with such complaints as "Abdominal pain for seven weeks" and "Cough for three days". One RTA, with no injuries and an elderly lady with difficulty in breathing (easily solved by a Salbutamol nebulizer) finished off the night.

It doesn't help that it starts getting light at 4am in the morning...

Sunday I shall, as mentioned, probably be nursing a hangover and catching up on some TV from the week before.

On Monday I shall be at 'TechActive', it looks interesting and I managed to swing some annual leave. I believe this is called 'going out', something I've been meaning to have a try of. I want to collar Cory Doctorow to tell him how copyright is preventing the people of London from getting the most effective health care available.

Yep, the subject line says it all - HIV test is negative, Syphilis test is negative and Hepatitis tests are negative.

Needless to say I am so far beyond 'relieved' as to be numb with it all.

I spent the last 20 hours awake, first at work, then in the 'clap clinic' waiting room; I now think I deserve a deep relaxed sleep.

Goodnight, I'll write more when I wake up...

posted at 11:13am local time

No sooner than I say that I'm not posting for a day than I get a couple of column inches in the Guardian (page hits have since quadrupled), very strange, but I feel weirdly proud about it all, mainly because I know I can't write; and my life isn't that interesting surely? Apparently I'm 'compelling', which makes me think of Derren Brown...

Anyway for those who have just turned up and are wondering why I'm having an HIV test, that whole saga starts here, and continues for that month (if you like a nice read about the side-effects of the anti-viral treatment I was given).

If you are curious about some of the medical/slang terms I throw about you can have a look at this previous entry, only some of it is tongue in cheek.

My 'About me' page is here, but to be honest it really isn't that interesting - it's traditional to have 101 things, but I had trouble thinking up 81.

Once you are up to speed I recommend that you have a look at some of the links on the right of this page - there are people who write a lot better than I do.

It's now 4:40 am, and I'm bloody knackered - we haven't stopped all night, at least in part due to there only being two ambulances on from 3am until 7am covering a large area (Barking to Bow for those who know London) - and we are one part of that cover.

Four hours before I descend on the 'clap clinic' and demand (with menaces if needed) my HIV result.