How's your week going? Been a pretty scary one in Casa Le Bon to be honest, whilst not being the first time I've been floored by a cold figuratively speaking, yesterday was completely another story.......
I know, I know at best this makes me sound like a right drama queen, oh my days it's just a cold Jan (unless you're a man of course then we all know those things are lethal! đ) at worst a hypochondriact but allow me to explain....Since day dot my colds have been legendary or I should say my coughs have, as a child in the 70s my chest and nostrils were more than just a little familiar with the pungent smell that is Vicks Vapo rub. I was always a strong child physically, well most of the time and lucky to be able to say no broken bones, or hospital stays etc BUT my one weakness was and has always been my chest and lungs. I remember the word 'Bronchitis' being bandied about quite a bit, my friends would get a sneeze or two and a bit of a cough but I would be hacking all night while mum was on hand providing relief via a boiling kettle, bowls and steam! Hey, it wasn't pleasant but at the end of the day there are worse things right so I dealt with it over the years growing up. Hell, some of my best anecdotes were even created because of it such as the time I joined the Army and went camping in the woods of Surrey on training in our little bivouwac tents, I'd been sniffing all week with my legendary cough gradually getting worse and there I was sleeping in the woods...fast forward to around 2am and Private Williams was, true to form keeping everyone awake with my hacking as well as letting any enemy within a five mile radius know where we were and slightly defying the objective of us being there rather somewhat! By around 5am though our delightful Sgt had clearly
obviously had enough when her voice boomed through the forest "For fuck sake Private Williams will you shut the fuck up or die quietly!" much to the amusement of my platoon. In my defence though by daylight I had been shipped out to our camp hospital, where I stayed for many days after being treated for Pneumonia.
1997/8 was a bit of tough year for us as a young family, my then husband was very very poorly but at that point had not been diagnosed with the cancer that he later on would be. On a happier note we were expecting our second child and after a few scares and hospital stays I went into labour in the December, going into hospital at that time of the year I of course had "a bit of a cough". Now I know it's ironic but we all know that hospital is not the best place to be if your sick! Well, you know what I mean, not with a cold and such like anyway. To say our son's birth was traumatic for him and I is playing it down more than just a little as friends and family well know, luckily though we both made it, just. Being unwell however the birth did take everything out of me and my cold and cough unsurprisingly took a turn for the worse. Having to stay in for the week following the birth nursing a sick baby in special care compounded matters and by the time we left the hospital I had deteriorated which wasn't ideal with a new baby, a lively toddler and a sick husband. My mum had at that time moved a little further away and as my husband was in no position to offer support and I became increasingly sicker despite antibiotics, I had to take myself and the children off to stay with mother and be looked after, this had become apparent when my coughing had resulted in sore ribs, possibly cracked and such a pain in my back that I was unable to pick my newborn baby up. I could only visit the doctor days later when slightly improved and it was decided then that more than likely I had developed pleurisy this time! It took weeks before I was well again, and on it goes. I do also get 'normal' milder colds of course but you get the general picture.
Fast forward to the here and now and last week a few people around me started with the usual colds that make the rounds this time of year so I guess it was inevitable that I would pick it up at some point. Again it's the dreaded cough that gets me, despite bombarding myself with Vitamin C, cold and flu capsules, throat lozenges, early nights etc during the early onset,by the end of last week I was poorly and struggling...it's not just with the cold but the constant battle of a chronic illness with a mind of its own is also thrown into the mix....and here's the thing, when you cough all night you don't sleep, when you don't sleep you get exhausted and your body in turn gets run down and tired which is probably not ideal when you balance on a daily basis a chronic illness which renders your body run down and tired! I rested all through the weekend in the hope of being up to going into work at the beginning of the week.
Come Monday, I went into work despite not much improvement and it was tough I'm not going to lie and not just on myself to be fair but also my colleagues who had to listen to my hacking and gasps of breath along with the dread of catching my germs (a lateral flow test was taken to rule out Covid although this was never realistically suspected)and so I made the call to finish early in the afternoon in the hope the next day would be better. By Tuesday morning around 5 am I was on my feet having been coughing all night and in reality since the thursday before which is therefore probably when I had my last night of sleep!. Going to bed on the Monday night before however I had every intention of going into work on the Tuesday but even at such an early time of the morning it was evident I wasn't up to it. What happened next I'm not too sure if it was brought on by the cold, the ME, exhaustion or panic, or being a Gemini simply flamboyant drama - my current thinking however is all of the above. Having been downstairs to make myself a soothing cup of tea, top up with cold remedy etc, I decided to go back to bed but rather than wake the hubby I went and laid in the spare room. The coughing which had previously abated was back and escalating. The wheezing, chest tightness and constant hacking was getting quite scary, especially when I couldn't catch my breath and my body began aching so much it felt like it was closing down. Following a particularly bad coughing fit the room began spinning and I tried in vain to call out to my (heavily asleep and snoring)husband in the other room. This is when the tears and panic came in, I felt overcome with dizziness but very slowly made my way over to our bedroom across the landing and once in I was overcome with panic, emotion, heat and more bloody coughs, as I tried to tell him what was wrong I collapsed slowly to the floor and voila, there I am indeed literally 'floored' by a cold. The only problem was the coughing continued as did the tears and panic which meant I was unable to breathe along with my body screaming enough...I lay down and didn't even have enough energy in the tank to turn over let alone get off the floor and so in a nutshell that's where I stayed for probably at least a couple of hours while hubby rang emergency out of hours. Of course my condition slowly improved during this time, enough for me, helped by hubby to make it to bed, thankfully no ambulance was needed and bed is where I stayed for the remainder of the day. Today the cough it still persistent but has loosened somewhat, tomorrow I have an appointment at the local surgery and blood tests. I am recovering and recuperating.
Now you all know by now that I am forever advocating looking on the bright side of everything even when you can't possibly imagine what that may be in some situations as they unfold, this is why I share these sometimes personal and often embarrassing things that happen on my path dealing with such issues - what I haven't mentioned in this re-cap of the week's events though are the thoughts racing through my head as I lay sobbing on the floor listening to my husband on the phone with medics while I was unable to move. No, I wasn't paralysed but as I later tried to explain to hubby "I could move my limbs but they couldn't move me". I thought for that short time which actually felt like an eternity on the floor (which, now I remember also seriously needs vacuuming!) that all my worst nightmare were about to come true. I thought/believed that with not enough energy in my tired body to lift myself off the floor that combined with the courtesy of a common cold my ME had stepped up a notch and that this would be my life now. The panic was real that this was the point I went from mild/moderate to severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and I became bed bound.....BUT, that didn't happen, as I said previously I'm pretty convinced now that it was just an unfortunate combination of everything that led to this. Therein though lies my silver lining, despite resting, exhausted in my bed for the rest of the day I DID however slowly improve. Whilst even now I am still poorly it is merely with a cold and nothing more! Worst case scenarios can sometimes/often be simply that, scenarios and so I am currently finding myself feeling a little more positive than I was previously,and by previously I mean before yesterday's drama. Perception is a wonderful thing...previously my thinking had gone down the route of "I am sick of being sick and I cannot cope with this chronic illness sh*t anymore" for a while, not that I have any say in the matter of course but now resting and contemplating I realise that yesterday I though for a short time that I may now be bed-bound with severe ME and today I'm not, where I am at times is not a barrel of laughs and I do on occasion become fairly unwell, there are others who do have this condition in it's severe form and are living where my worst fears were yesterday. I am still blessed in that I can work, live and occasionally play etc. I don't compare but perspective is always needed. So now to shake this cold and get myself back on my feet and setting goals! Although slightly compromised I still have a life to live you know đâ¤
