Andy Richardson: Full of cold and feeling ill? I'll struggle on

The gaffer had selected a better quality of pill. The distinctive red, yellow and green livery of Lemsip Max Cold & Flu Capsules sat totemically beside his desk; a warning to those not yet infected to keep away.

The downtable battalions made do with Tesco's homebrand tablets; hoping a dose of paracetamol, phenylephrine and caffeine would get them through the day. And those who really ought to have been on a day off sported oxymetazoline spray, which I thought was used by welders but apparently unblocks noses like Dyno-Rod with a drain. It was the equivalent of a red X on the door in 1665 London.

Journalists are a remarkably hardy bunch. It's not easy getting a job as a writer and, with few exceptions, they are dedicated to the cause.

The usual hubbub of the newsroom, however, had been replaced by a heavy silence. It was like being at Molineux after a Cup tie against Chelsea. The hush was punctuated sporadically by a girl in the corner whose polite sneezes made her sound like a chipmunk. A shrill chipping sound was followed by a rapid trill. Endearing doesn't come close.

I'd started the day in a state of confusion: though some might say that's how most days begin. I'd spent three largely-sleepless nights wondering why my body felt as though it were a piece of cardboard that had lost a fight with a baseball bat. My stomach had been purged in a series of violent 'I-don't-need-that-stuff-in-my-stomach-anymore' contractions and for the first time in a year I'd started to look reasonably slim. Ain't no diet like a chest infection diet.

"Take a day off," somebody sensible suggested. I baulked. I haven't taken a day off work for about 12 years. And in the past 18 years, I've only taken five. I'm as likely to take a day off as Jeremy Clarkson is to vote Green. Or as Tony Bellew is to have a bromance with David Haye. I reckon it's been 4,957 days since my last sickie, which, excluding holidays and bank holidays, is a run of 4,573 consecutive days at work. That's enough time for a rabbit to have 142 single litter babies, a lion to sire 42 cubs or an elephant to deliver seven calves. No jungle fever was going to keep me from my desk.

I did what all work junkies do: hit the road. There were stories to be written, calls to be made, emails to be sent and similes to be found.

The bright lights of Tesco blazed like a beacon as I neared the office and I pulled in as though it were an oasis in the Sahara. I bought everything in the store that contained lemon and oxymetazoline before finishing my shopping with a can of de-icer. I wasn't sure whether to use it on the car or my throat.

Safely in the office, I downed a Lucozade chaser. It's been about 20 years since I last drank the sticky gold stuff. Back then, my breakfast consisted of the sparkling glucose drink and my supper comprised pints of Bishop's Finger. It's a reasonable assumption that I didn't live the healthiest of lives and the wheels eventually span off my axle like the supersoft Pirellis on a smashed-up F1 car.

Now before the Department for Infectious Diseases gets sniffy about my coming into work while under the weather, I should add this. My two deskmates were absent from work on the days on which I was shivering like the leaves of an aspen in the breeze. They didn't see the cold sweats, were unperturbed by the sniffling nose and were unable to tell me my eyes looked like I'd been punched.

The other thing I did, which all blokes do, is say nothing. Stoically I persisted, though pills, energy drinks and citrus-based foodstuffs that made my desk look like a marketing campaign from Italy's Amalfi coast may have given the game away.

The oxymetazoline kicked in. It was the breakfast of champions. By noon, I was turning cartwheels and offering to do extra work for the girl who sneezes like a chipmunk.

It didn't last. As the meds wore off, I slumped over my computer. Short of breath, I looked like a middle aged bloke who'd just completed a 10-mile run in his work clothes. Or, more accurately, a middle-aged bloke who should have taken a day off but hasn't chucked a sickie since going down with Clostridium Difficile Colitis in 2004. And even then, I only took three days.

Proud but ragged, I made my way home. The unbroken attendance record remains intact.