Mission Update - Starting the year on a low note

Well here I stand before you, just over a week into 2008, with hanging head and shamefaced expression. I have failed two missions.
I had been going strong, staunchly resisting the chips from the canteen downstairs at work, but yesterday something inside me broke. I ordered some and ate them. They were actually pretty good. But I didn't feel so well afterwards. So there, my first confession is out. Now for number two.
I got also Jerome's flu - my excessive garlic and chilli concoction came to naught. The morning we got up to depart for Japan, I was tired and listless. My nose was hot, my throat felt like a piece of sisal was hitching a ride in it, and my eyes were watery. Halfway to the airport, the sneezes were coming thick and fast, along with lots of mucus. "I feel hot," I said to the Buckwell. "Feel my forehead."
He did. "No fever," he replied.
So I popped a couple of cold and flu tablets and tried to ride it out.
The flu tablets must've worked a bit, because British Airways upgraded us to Club class on the way over to Tokyo. However, it was obvious that I was really sick; I declined the Champagne on boarding, and went for an orange juice instead. Then, despite the fully-flat bed, movies on demand, and food on proper china plates, things went rapidly downhill. It all reached a head about 30,000 feet up, somewhere north of Ulan Batur, when I woke up after a short sleep, with a piercing earache, the shivers and a large trail of mucus winding its way from my nose to my mouth. I winced, and said plaintively to the Buckwell, "I think I have a fever".
Dutifully, he reached across and felt my forehead. "Nope."
So I curled myself up in the foetal position (what a waste of a flat bed), and shivered for an hour.
"What about now?"
"Sorry. You still don't have a fever."
"Oh".
Eventually, we got to Tokyo, and I soldiered on for a couple of days until my cold/flu faded away. By about the fifth day, I was back to my normal self. But on our penultimate morning, I woke up with a sore throat and ballooning neck glands. By the evening, I was exhausted and in bed by 9pm. "Damn," I moaned. "I think I'm getting another cold." The Buckwell reached over and felt my forehead. "Oh no," he said. "Now you really do have a fever."