What I Re-learned While I Was Sick

I was sick last week. I felt miserable. It wasn’t a cold or flu, but a sinus issue I experience each year when Summer begins morphing into Fall. What I hoped would be a quick, down and dirty inconvenience turned into 11 days of awfulness.  I had a deep chest cough which hurt mightily. My head was so congested I couldn’t sleep for several nights. While it wasn’t the end of the world, there were a few hours I wanted it to be. But I re-learned a few things amidst the hacking and nose blowing:

It’s ok to ask for what I need. I’m fortunate in that my workplace values self-care. One day I worked from home the entire day. Other days I worked from home for a few hours, only going to the office for scheduled meetings. I was able to complete my full week of work and keep my projects moving forward.

I can forget the basics. When I emailed my peers to let them know I’d be working from home, one of them wrote back, “You need to rest and drink a lot of fluids.” Drinking fluids is a basic. Everyone knows to drink more fluids when sick. But until I read that message, I’d forgotten. I was grateful for the reminder and immediately began chugging fluids like a champ.

It’s ok to miss workouts. I hate this one. But the rule of thumb is if the congestion is in the chest, don’t workout. Not working out was a bummer because I’m just now getting back to running following the foot surgery. I imagined my muscles atrophying while I languished at home. But in the spirit of “life on life’s terms,” I toughed it out…and rested.

It’s ok to miss a meeting. Hubs and I volunteer as ESL workers and we were supposed to be at a planning meeting Tuesday night. Hubs went without me and brought back the information I needed. As far as I know, the program didn’t collapse because I wasn’t there.

I can be a real grump when I’m sleep deprived. There was not an ounce of perkiness in me. There were times I really had to concentrate on being nice, but I didn’t want to have to make amends later.

Steam feels good. I’m old school. I boiled that pot of water, made a tent with a bath towel and breeeeaaaathed.

I learned what “twerking” means. Oh, wait. That didn’t have anything to do with my being sick. That whole Miley thing just happened to have ocurred while I was under the weather. It didn’t make me feel better, though.

What are your tried and true remedies for sinus and allergy season?

Advertisement