Subscriber OnlyLife & Style

Rosita Boland: I slept for 12 hours straight, and dreamt of nuns and donkeys

Driving west for a reporting assignment, I realised the annoying little cough I’d left Dublin with was developing into something else

By 4pm I was asleep, fully-clothed, on a Travel Lodge bed on the Tuam Road. Photograph: iStock

Rosita Boland's face
Rosita Boland
Wed Feb 7 2024 - 06:00

It seems lots of people went down like skittles in January with various variations of nasty coughs. Let me share with you my own recent woes in that particular department.

Recently, I was out on the road for work, as I often am. I was due to spend two nights away from home in the west on a reporting assignment, during which time I would also write the article. This is routine.

On the appointed day, I drove west. Every now and then, I gave a quick cough. When I got to the town, I realised the annoying little cough I’d left Dublin with was developing into something else. I went into a pharmacy, came out with some cough syrup, and then got on with my interviews.

That night, I coughed a lot. The cough syrup was not making any discernible impact. Cough cough cough.

READ MORE

The next morning, I could see from my weather app that the temperature outside was minus five. I went to take a shower at the B&B I was staying in, as one does. Then waited for the water to get hot, but it remained as resolutely icy as the weather outside. I did not take a shower.

While I was settling my bill, the proprietor asked if I had had any trouble getting hot water in the shower.

“It was grand,” I fibbed.

[ Rosita Boland: When my black silk velvet cape met my Trumpian taxi driver ]

“That’s great,” says he. “Because we forgot to turn on the immersion, but there must have been some hot water left over from yesterday.”

I was late for the first interview of the day because it took so long to de-ice my car. I am usually never late. Being late for the first interview meant I was also late for the second. In a tizz, I arrived at the location for the second interview, which was, I realised on arrival, in a former convent.

Before we began, my interviewee asked if I would like to see the nuns’ former chapel. I said I would. The chapel was surprisingly large, and the stained glass windows were still in situ.

“It’s lovely to come in and have a pray,” my interviewee said. I was fascinated to think that this man’s daily work was interspersed with ad-hoc visits to a deconsecrated nunnery chapel. We conducted the interview in his office, which overlooked a field with grazing donkeys, and which was so perishingly cold I kept my coat on throughout.

I got into the car, and went to call the clamper’s number, and then realised my phone was missing. This. Could. Not. Be. Happening

When we were finished, and I was walking to my car, my interviewee pointed to an enclosed space at the bottom of a second field. “That’s the nuns’ graveyard,” he said. “You might like to go down and have a look.” I did indeed walk to the graveyard and stood there for a while, counting the identical stone stubs. I got to 75, then stopped, thinking about those dozens of dead women who had once chosen a way of life so few now do.

There was more walking around in the bitter cold as I went to more interviews. Cough cough cough.

By the evening, at which point I was in a different town, I was beginning to feel very unwell. COUGH. COUGH. COUGH. I went to bed at 9pm, but did not sleep much due to the constant coughing.

At 6am, I made coffee and wrote my article, coughing all the while.

By the time I checked out of the hotel, I decided to look for a walk-in clinic in Galway. I parked beside the clinic, outside a supermarket. In the waiting room, I coughed and coughed, feeling like Typhoid Mary: I was the only one there without a mask. My phone was pinging with queries from my editor about the story I’d filed earlier. For once, I didn’t answer.

“So,” the doctor said, when he had done his work with thermometer and stethoscope. “You have a bad chest infection. And a high temperature. You need steroids and antibiotics, and I am going to put you on a nebuliser to stop the coughing because it really is very bad.”

Three of these things were entirely new to me. I had never previously had a chest infection, I had never been prescribed steroids, and what the hell was a nebuliser?

[ Rosita Boland: Anyone who thinks that TikTok is only for the young is totally wrong ]

For half an hour, I breathed into this nebuliser, and finally stopped coughing. I took the prescription to the next-door pharmacy, but their system was down, so I had to walk to another, feeling shaky as I did.

When I came back, my car had been clamped.

I got into the car, and went to call the clamper’s number, and then realised my phone was missing. This. Could. Not. Be. Happening. I got out of the car and discovered my phone on the roof. When I had left it there, I have absolutely no idea.

It was more than an hour before my car was de-clamped, after, ahem, I had coughed up €90. By this point, I actually felt delirious, between the lack of sleep, a temperature and the still-intermittent coughing. I started to drive through Galway, knowing when I uncharacteristically got confused at a roundabout, that I was not going to make it home that night.

By 4pm I was asleep, fully-clothed, on a Travel Lodge bed on the Tuam Road. I slept for 12 hours straight, and dreamt of nuns and donkeys.

I hope your own winter woes cost you less, and didn’t involve so much coughing.

  • Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
  • Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
  • Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here
READ NEXT
LATEST STORIES