Table 2.

Accounts of general health

Feeling well despite symptoms
P7	LR:	But you have had these headaches. Um. Would you say you've been feeling generally unwell?
	P7:	Not really
	P7P:	I don't know if you're feeling unwell
	P7:	No. Just odd now and again.
P10	P10:	I mean I've been quite healthy (.) I've got high blood pressure I mean I've had that ooh [>20 years]...so that's all fairly long going you know but I haven't had any actual illnesses or anything
P11	P11:	I didn't feel anything was wrong inside. I mean I had no inkling at all. Um. If I had had that x-ray, but I wouldn't have known because I (.) there was (.) I felt quite well really, it was only just you know this operation on my neck
P16	P16:	When I had the cough you know she said they'd picked up the shadow...I probably sat there for a few seconds you know trying to take it in but that wasn't, when she said that I didn't get the feeling then that there was something wrong (LR: No) because as far as I knew I hadn't got anything wrong with me, but it's so there you are.
P25	P25:	I was ill a lot last year but when I was taken into hospital and the antibiotics and the treatment I had and the months rest I had when I came home where I wasn't going to work (since then I've cut my hours down) I feel so well. But I honestly was not expecting anything like that to be said to me, because I feel so much better than I did last year… In fact I feel better now at the moment than I have done for a long time...you see once I've had my antibiotics or a bit of an inhaler I'm fine again, like I am now. So at the moment, I feel so much better that I think it's not making any sense to me.
Exceptions to feeling well despite symptoms—declining health
P17	P17:	About a year ago. “What's that? What's going wrong with me” you know and I was going like that. Everything goes tonta...feels as though I can't breathe you know and then I'd just (indicates short breaths) only for a second, and then it's gone and then I'd go back to breathing and everything like that,...And that was about a year ago, that's when I noticed “,[ ] there's something wrong with you”.
P19:	LB:	How would you describe how you feel now?
	P19:	Not perfect. No. I mean I'm tired now. This made me tired! That's shows you how and it wouldn't normally do that!
P20:	P20:	And it was afterwards I was thinking I shall be able to get back on me feet now but instead I seem to be going on a slow decline. And I started to lose weight and like I said, things started tasting funny and all this, and I'm saying “Ok”. And then I'd have a cold and this cough that wouldn't go away and to be honest I used to be coughing nearly all the time and it was like having a cold 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'd start to get really tired and as I say, I was quite busy on Tuesday and I was throwing out rubbish...and then I cleaned all me windows. And yesterday, I felt like I'd been run over by a ten ton truck! And I thought ‘well this is not me’ It's just not me...maybe it's mental, you know, your own brain saying ‘your body's not very well, just slow down’
P26	P26P:	This last year she's deteriorated in many things.
	P26:	Well I think you can understand it though.
	P26P:	That's geriatrics for you isn't it?
	P26:	No it isn't you can understand it, when you've had a cough for this long. I mean it really takes
		it out of you, it really does. You try explaining that to the doctor!