Every winter, for as long back as I can remember, I have ended up with a heavy duty case of bronchitis. I catch a cold, it becomes bronchitis. Just the way I work. I have become one of those obnoxious people who go to extremes to prevent it. I use the antiseptic wipes in stores to clean my cart. If they don't provide them, I use hand sanitizer gel to clean it. I put on a face mask in doctors' waiting rooms. After all, there are sick people there. On the other hand, I return the favor, if I am sick with a cold and need to visit a doctor's office, I wear a mask since I don't want to spread it to anyone else. I avoid shaking hands during cold and flu season when at all possible. I avoid crowded places, which I now do anyway because of the FTD. I needed to do these things when I was dealing with chemo treatments a few years back and have just stuck with the whole rigmarole. And, yes, I get my flu shot religiously. I do not understand why anyone would not now that they do not use a live virus in the serum. But that's just me...
Last week, my husband and I visited a store, then decided to have dinner at a very popular restaurant. Sure enough, three days later, I had come down with a cold. It is almost gone and I seem to have avoided it turning into bronchitis. (Knock on wood here.) I am very happy about that and am praying that it doesn't continue to linger.
Reading posts from others dealing with FTD, I have often seen them talking about how any little illness can throw them for a loop. That made sense to me, since we tend to be weary a lot of the time and other illnesses will make you feel that way as well. Reading about it and experiencing it are two very different things.
This cold wiped me out, sapped all my energy and made me miserable. As I have mentioned many times, I have a chronic headache, similar to a migraine, constantly. When you add sinus congestion into the mix, it becomes massive. I have spent a week not wanting to do anything at all. I have not even wanted to read, the one pleasurable thing that I can still do. When I don't read, that is a huge sign that I am sick.
I know this is probably ending up to be a very boring post. I'm sure many of you are saying something like "What a wimp. So she has a cold. Big deal!" I totally agree with you. That's how I felt all week as well. Then I spoke with a few people with different chronic illnesses and discovered that they experience the same thing. It seems when your body is constantly under attack from a chronic illness, it doesn't have many reserves left to fight something as simple as a common cold. It makes total sense and I don't know why I had not thought of it before.
When we were dining at the restaurant, low and behold, who gets seated right next to us? My ex-boss and her husband. Yes, the ex-boss who decided I could no longer work for her because of my FTD. (She was probably right, I just believe she handled the situation in a horribly nasty way.) At the restaurant, she tried to ignore me, but I am the kind of person who doesn't deal with things that way. Kill 'em with kindness. It usually shifts that awkward feeling from me back to the one who should be feeling that way and makes me the bigger person anyway. So, on our way out, I stopped by their table and exchanged "pleasantries" with them. Can you guess who I blame for giving me the cold? You got it!!!
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