This is 100% the most I’ve ever googled about an illness in my life. I’m actually learning a few things too — things that the rest of the world learned already and I brushed over. My head tends me to be in the clouds unless the practical information applies to me in that precise moment. It is not a stellar learning strategy.
For example, I believe this is the first time I’ve really let an illness play out without much medication — letting the fever do its job instead of suppressing it, dealing with the congestion rather than having it build up and rebound later after I can no longer take decongestants.
I also learned the terms for productive vs unproductive cough . . . the productive (wet, gross one) shouldn’t be suppressed since it’s getting that gunk out of your system . . . I think this is actually the first time I learned what Mucinex is even after those hundreds of commercials I saw growing up. Expectorants? Who knew?
I feel like the lesson in front of me is to stop dulling symptoms because that could get in the way of my body’s natural healing systems.
Oh, and that ice cream is a good thing to eat when you’re sick with Covid, for real.
The stakes have never felt higher for me to be well as quickly as possible, so I’m taking the advice I might not have before. I even put my head over a sink of hot water (thanks, Mom) and stopped drinking caffeine this week, and have tried to sleep as much as possible, though that always feels fleeting to me.
I know, sick blogs aren’t that interesting. But you know when you’re sick it kind of becomes your entire world? Especially when you get a positive Covid test two weeks before baby is due. So yes, lots of googling and relearning the isolation rules and hoping that this week isn’t the right time for anything to happen. Lots of reckoning with how little control I have over anything . . . story of this adoption process.
Wish me well —
With Love,
Natalie