Lemsip because that was the substance that led me to discover I had PC. I should warn you that I am writing with a hint of a persona that might be fit a grumpy old man, irritated by trivia that other people can overlook. At the same time, I try to inject some humour so that you realise that I'm not actually that grumpy in real life.
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I began my 2025 Christmas break from work with plans. I intended to execute various lingering jobs around the house, including applying the final finishing touches to the gaping wound in the kitchen ceiling. Fate, however, intervened. Almost exactly on cue, I breathed in a virus and by the second day of my holiday, I was afflicted.
It wasn't an absolute showstopper, I admit, but it was severe enough to drive me to imbibe the substance known as Lem Sip. (I must point out here that the budget supermarkets have their own ranges of hot lemon and paracetamol powders, which are identical in their active ingredients and entirely sufficient for the task).
The first time I took it was in the middle of the night. I couldn’t stop coughing; whenever I lay down, the hacking started, but when I sat up, it subsided. Resolving to let Madam Lemsip (as she is now known) sleep, I came downstairs at about 2:00 a.m., made myself a mug of the hot lemon, and topped it up with a tot of brandy that had been strictly earmarked for the Christmas cake. It was a moment of recklessness and I regret it now, but at the time I felt no remorse. I retreated to the sofa and set it to full recline. It was the perfect geometry, elevating my head just enough to keep the coughing at bay. The Lemsip—with or without the brandy—seemed to calm the symptoms, so I had another upon waking the next morning.
At some point later in the day, I decided to go for a pee, as one does in the lead-up to Christmas. Now, I make no apology for detailing visits to the smallest room, because they are of foundational relevance to this tale. I did what had to be done and returned to whatever sad, domestic activity I was engaged in. Unusually though, within five or ten minutes, I felt the distinct urge to go and repeat the procedure.
Funny, I thought, because with the exception of when one is out on the razzle where, once your body has reached saturation point, peeing frequency increases to discharge liquid at roughly the rate of beer intake, one can normally go two to four hours between visits.
Funny as it might have seemed, one is duty-bound to follow the orders of one's own plumbing, so I repeated the exercise and thought nothing more of it.
Days passed, and the cold did not subside. This was a persistent, stubborn beast of a British virus, not one of those flashy foreign ones like Covid-19. It wreaked havoc on my respiratory tract throughout Christmas, and I can’t recall anyone appearing to feel overtly sorry for me. Not to worry, I am perfectly capable of feeling sorry for myself. This was definitely a case of fully fledged “man flu”.
By Boxing Day, I resorted once again to that mainstay of modern survival: Reckitt Benckiser’s “Lemsip”, containing 1000mg of paracetamol, 12.2mg of phenylephrine hydrochloride, plus ascorbic acid, sucrose, and aspartame.
That evening, at my sister's house, I consumed two near-perfect cups of tea, which would have been completely perfect if they had been Tetley or Yorkshire or just normal tea, but she gave me Earl Grey for some reason. Madam Lemsip likes Earl Grey and I think my sister must have got our preferences mixed up. I drank both cups out of politeness.
Shortly after the second cup, I once again did that most human of things and went for a pee. I returned to the sitting room to continue reminiscing about some once-good thing that has either been made illegal or will never come back. Fingerbobs might have been up for discussion, but I cannot honestly remember the specific grievance, because within five minutes of sitting down, I knew with absolute certainty that what I wanted more than anything else in the world was another pee. Once again, I thought, “Funny”, and once again I was compelled to do as I was being told by my bladder.
So, I returned to the toilet and did a perfectly normal pee. Normal in all respects, save for the fact that it came so soon after its predecessor.
I noticed that this had happened on the days when I had taken Lemsip. It had had some sort of effect on my bladder, I thought, which it had never had before.
What with me being in my sixties and everything, and the posters at work, and the occasional reminders that creep up from unexpected sources, and now some unusual peeing performance, I thought it was probably time to see my GP.
