No Rest For The Wickedly Sick…

It’s been something of a difficult week for me, having gotten sick late last week and having whatever evil typhoid infecting my body carry into this weekend. I pride myself on not being the type of guy who does “man flu,” meaning I’m not the type to complain about not feeling well as a general rule. But even I can only take so much and sometimes an illness will put me down just as easily as the next person. It rather sucks, especially since I JUST started karate the week before last and missed all of this week due to illness. Not to mention I have my eye injections, this coming Monday. If I don’t heal up and feel better by Monday, I get to experience the shitty feeling of being sick WHILE getting needles jabbed into my eyes. Ah, life…

It usually seems that no matter the type of illness, one always seems convinced they could handle ANYTHING else. For example, if one has a stomach flu and is throwing up, they’d usually be inclined to say they wished it was anything other than a stomach flu. One gets a sinus cold where one is stuffed up and has difficulty breathing, one will be convinced they’d manage fine if they could just breathe and were sick with ANYTHING else. Illness, not that any version of it is fun, is a bit like always wanting what you can’t have. For me, the biggest pet peeve is being unable to sleep. I can’t sleep worth a damn at the best of times, between Diabetes, PTSD and nightmares. Add coughing into the mix and it’s simply a recipe for poor recovery.

Imagine having a dry, rasping cough and being unable to control when it hits. And no, before everyone jumps to conclusions, it isn’t COVID-19. Not every cough or sinus problem is COVID-19. But all bitterness aside, you feel like shit, you take some meds and nasal spray and lie down gingerly in bed with the hopes of getting some sleep in order to allow your body to recuperate from whatever illness is plaguing you. You just start to slip into a state of sleep when you feel that familiar itch at the back of your throat. You swallow in vain, hoping the minimal saliva will help prevent you from hacking up a lung, but to no avail. You end up hacking and retching, barely able to catch your breath. It only lasts about twenty seconds but the damage is done; you’re now awake and have to work towards trying to sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat and cry.

This has been my reality for the past week. I’ve woken up most mornings this week with dark, sunken and bloodshot eyes. As is the standard definition of ironic, I usually wake at a point where I was soundly asleep and likely could have slept for hours, had I not needed to get up for work. Such is life. I stumbled through my week, getting my work done and running the necessary errands, happy in the fact that I don’t have to operate heavy machinery and even happy that I no longer have to carry a firearm, otherwise I might have a problem. Given that it’s been over a week I should likely get checked. But given the current state of Canada’s health system and wait times, I likely have time to crawl into my grave and pull the dirt on top of myself before I’d see someone and get effective treatment.

So bad has it been that despite the fact I intended to get home from work yesterday evening and enjoy a beer and a cigar to relax at the end of my week, I was outside for fifteen minutes before coming back inside and retreating to my bed. Maybe I’m making it seem dramatic but I want to illustrate that whatever this is, is more than just a casual case of the sniffles. Couple that with the fact that my blood sugars have been all over the place and my meals have been sporadic and there should be plenty to talk about in a month and a half, at my next endocrinologist appointment. But i digress…

The big problem is that sleep is not cumulative. It’d be a lot cooler if it was… (cue Matthew McConaughey voice, if you know, you know!) Imagine having a day off and sleeping for a full 24 hours and not having to sleep for the next three days??? Imagine the productivity and things you’d get done? It’d be cool, but the damage caused by lack of sleep can’t be made up later on. Lack of sleep will cause blood pressure issues, headaches, fluctuating blood sugars and poor concentration and cognitive reflexes. None of that is good when you wander the adult world.

The fact that I’m rambling should tell you just how ill I am. I’m sure I’ll recover. Everyone recovers from illness. Until they don’t. But if I post tomorrow, I guess that means I’m on my way. I make fun, but as I get older I recognize that my body’s ability to recover is becoming less and less effective. Of course, my grandfather lived until his late 90’s, having survived every illness under the stars, including cancer. My father’s spine is slowly degenerating and he’s still fighting like and angry warhorse; emphasis on the angry. I’ll keep y’all posted. ☯️