I don’t get sick!
Working in a doctor’s surgery, you build up an immunity system. You work, hear, speak, breathe, patients all day and you smile cheerfully, you commiserate in their aches and pains, you genuinely sympathise with them, their concerns, their worries, you cater for their needs, you smile sincerely and optimistically, and tell them ‘the doctor won’t be long’. You work alongside people who deal with the sick every day and you come to work and stay healthy…Well, generally yes!
I have done so for many, many, many years! I have not been sick, I don’t get sick, I mean after all you are looking after the sick! That’s your most important role. But this week was so different. So very different- I was quite ill!
Something small blew out to something huge! Not for just one day but longer, so much longer and ending up not doing anything except lying on your pillow and feeling like you are at deaths door, or wanting to die anyway…..for many days straight.
You’ve become patient zero and are quarantined to the confines of your bed. Sex Is definitely off the Table, you don’t want your loved one near you. Yes, you take the time and you get some much-needed quality time with your bed. But you know and expect your inbox at work to be flooded with unread e-mails when you get back to the office. Then everything begins to taste the same because your stuffed nostrils ruin your sense of smell and taste.. that is when you feel you want to eat! And you feel like you’ll nevere normal again with that runny nose, hoarse cough, achy muscles, sore throat—you cannot even remember what healthy feels like because One minute, you’re shivering like it’s 0°C, so you surround yourself in a cocoon of blankets. Then, five minutes later, it feels like a sauna and you unravel from under the covers…until you’re freezing again. Please Body temperature, can you make up your mind. Then when you feel you finally feel better and think you can start to socialise again, you sound worse than ever….as you re still coughing and now sound like you smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and yes, the cough that accompanies it sounds like you are at deaths door!
Yes, it really hits you hard when you think that one small chest cough can erupt into days and nights of high fevers and massive headaches and hacking chest coughs, tossing and turning, alternating from shivering and sweating- so bad that as much as you want him next to you, you ask your husband to sleep in the other room, so at least he can get a decent nights sleep and the most important thing, not get sick!!
And to top it off… I did have to take time off work! So- unheard of!
So, you say…why am I writing about this??
Because being sick affects so much in your life. It affects the way you think…the way you react, the way you relate to others, the way you read texts and respond, the way you speak to people, it really does affect so much! In so many ways!
Like having to deal with calls from work and even though you are sick, but have said to our staff ‘you are available’, you hear the phone ring and you fight to get to it, but even though you are struggling to breathe properly, from doing something that comes so easy, so natural, you now try so hard to always present your smiling voice to answer those queries;
Or like reading SMS texts to say that their weekly pay has not gone in and normally you would reply with concerns and happy to find out why, but now you don’t answer and ignore it because you just cannot deal with this aspect right now and actually, in reality really don’t care…,
0r like trying to present a smiling face to messages from work about pre-planned appointments and then find that professional person now cannot cover when they said they would, and normally you would take it in stride, but instead all you want to do is tell them off!
Or like knowing it is someone’s special birthday and you really want to Skype but even though you are burning up with fever and feel so ill that you cannot lift your head off the pillow, but you still send a message explaining what’s happened and hoping they will understand, but not really caring if they don’t!
Or Like attending the family planned morning out because you really want to see the grandchildren but when you do, you don’t feeling very much like interacting with them or even wanting to get close physically, holding them at arms distance and when they sit in your lap, turning your face away because you don’t want them to get sick…and then feeling simply awful because you don’t want to really talk with your daughter or daughter in law- but would much rather be lying in bed, but instead you are in the shade on the beach with your family, trying to engage, but knowing your effort is not very good at all! Your headache is too bad and your body is just so hot and you just want to be at home.
Or like lying with your head on your husbands lap as he munches our normal Friday night takeout… resting quietly but feeling so ill you feel the need to throw up, but try lying quietly, burning up with pain and malaise as he chats to you normally and you really don’t care what he is saying……..and then you cry! You really cry!
Being sick is not fun for anyone. Any illness, even a common cold, can have a negative impact not just on your physical health, but on your mental health, too. When you’re sick, it’s easy to let yourself get down. That can make your physical symptoms feel even more severe. When you’re feeling ill, it is so hard to keep your spirits up. No, being sick is not a great experience as it affects you physically, emotionally, and spiritually! It takes away the normal you. It takes away the happy caring considerate you.
It is not how I normally feel.
It is not how I normally act.
It is not how I normally react
It’s horrible!
And there is the adage of friends and family saying ‘So, take it easy, do as little as possible, look after yourself and let your body recover. take time off….”yeah right…when you know you have already taken time off work and you know you cannot take any more time off because you are management and your own staff are away sick…and not being a martyr, you simply have to be there…
So instead, you struggle out of bed, and you slowly make your way to work, and you sit down on that front office chair, smiling brightly as you try so hard not to cough…(that really isn’t a good look in medical practice when the reception person is herself sick! ) But you struggle on…you smile, you chat, and then walk away down the hallway right away from the front area to cough your heart out and blow your nose. …and then you make your way back …and start all over again.
But I guess the reality it, we all juggle work and family, and having it all invariably means trying to do more than we are able… That’s what happened to me. Through performing two jobs, not having any weekend rest at home because we have other aspects to consider every weekend that simply does not allow you to rest or recover……we keep going because that’s what we do!
And I really didn’t like the sick person I was…..because I don’t usually get sick! I really don’t!
Its not me!
And yes, eventually one day your head comes off that pillow, your fever goes down, your aches and pains gradually ease, and your hacking cough dissipates into something still painful but more manageable and you feel that a sense of a somewhat normality begins to return and you return to normal life as you know it…and life resumes as it was before…..maybe a few kilos lighter which is not a bad thing I guess? And your brain begins to function again in a normal manner, your mind slides into its natural curve of work and family, your conversation becomes easier as it is not interspersed with fits of coughing, your body walks through its normal daily interactions as you remix and mingle with people again back to the smiling normal you.
And Life is once again good!
Oh- I so look forward to that day!
But for the moment I shall just continue to curl under the covers and wait for that special normal moment of ‘me’ to arrive….sniffle…cough……ache….yes , ONE DAY !
And then …I hear my husband cough!