Such a Sicko

MS catches a cold

This particular post may offend some of my male readers and for that, I apologize.  Specifically, males who turn into whiny crybabies when they get sick.  You know, a little cough and they become completely incapacitated.

I know this is wrong- to lump males into this stereotype- especially since I personally abhor stereotypes.  Not EVERY male is a crybaby when he gets a cold.

Not EVERY woman is witchy when she gets PMS.

Not EVERY politician is a crook, well, let’s just leave it at that.

So, I would never, ever lump a whole group of people into one insulting stereotypical myth; unless, of course, it’s for my benefit as a slight bit of humor in a blog.

Cause here’s the thing, I finally, finally get it.  I’ve been living with a nasty head cold for over a week and have become one of the babiest of babies about it.

It started the Friday before Christmas with just a bit of a scratchy throat.  I took great precautions to keep the illness at bay and by that, I mean I didn’t do any screaming when I went to the hockey game on the 23rd.

Really.

When the jumbotron said to get loud I just clapped and stomped my feet.  And miraculously, without my full support, the Bruins won anyway-they’re that good!

I felt kind of cruddy on Sunday but did my best to ignore feeling a little blah in favor of Christmas Eve preparations and activities.

Christmas morning I still felt icky but Christmas itself took my mind off of it.

Tuesday morning though, the germy gloves came off and I have been a total uncomfortable, miserable mess since then.  The brutal coughing fits, the super sore throat, the stuffy AND runny nose, and the illness fatigue on top of the MS fatigue on top of the over the counter meds fatigue have done me in.  I’ve accomplished nothing except whining and can now totally relate to my male brethren.

And it all begs the question- is this normal or does multiple sclerosis play a part?  I don’t remember ever being overwhelmed by a common cold before.

When I was working fulltime I never took a sick day and would just work through feeling lousy as my coworkers always said I was indispensable and they couldn’t function without me.  I wasn’t and they could but believing so allowed them to do less work.

So how did I function amidst the symptoms doing me in now?  I must have but it seems impossible.

Plus, I don’t ever remember a cold lasting this long.

Back when I was a kid and didn’t feel like going to school a little ache might keep me home but only for the day, or maybe two if gym was on one day and a math test on the other.

Back then it was cool to stay home from school as channel 56 had Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley reruns on in the morning.  Laughing at them was enough to wipe me out to look miserable for when my mom came home from work on her lunch break and microwaved me some soup.  Sometimes, if I had managed to look sickly enough, she even brought me ice cream.

Ah… those were the sick days.

But now there’s nothing good on TV and it’s days later and I still feel miserable.  So much so that I went to the internet to find out if I might have something more than just the common cold.  But no, every website basically said I needed to get over myself, rest, suck it up, and find different reruns to watch.

Trust me, I checked everything- swine flu?  Nope.

Bird flu? Nope.

Variant flu? Ebola? Whooping cough?  No, no, no.

I’m this miserable over something most women in the world don’t even notice.  I felt so ashamed of myself that I even called the on-call nurses for my MS medication- could this be some type of a flare mixed in with all this germiness?

It’s possible, she told me, and worth paying attention to, but likely I just needed more rest and to drink lots of fluids.  Oh, I’m drinking fluids.  I’ve had so much water that my water app can’t even calculate the ounces anymore.  At this rate I’ll probably turn into a fish before I feel better.

While I was on the web trying to find a reason for being a such wimp I happened upon a random website site that was detailing facts about the movie Forest Gump.  Turns out Tom Hanks had the flu when he was filming the running scene!!

I can’t even run on a good day never mind one when I feel this crummy.  And he had an actual flu!!

Of course, I’m not getting paid thousands to get out of bad like he did.  But it turns out he wasn’t even paid to act in the movie- his contract just gave him a portion of the proceeds which turned out pretty well but it’s not like he knew that at the time.

So there, Tom Hanks made me feel even more like a baby and made me re-think the stereotype of males being wimps when it comes to a cold.  I’ve now become even wimpier and offer my most humble apologies.

Hey, all you guys out there, when you’re done accepting my apology can you please bring me tea and some more cough drops?  I prefer the wild cherry flavor…

Wishing you all a germ-free, pain-free, healthy, happy, giggly New Year!