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Getting Humbled By Illness
This last week, I came down with flu-like symptoms, and I will say I had the flu given my symptoms of a fever, chills, a runny and stuffy nose, cough, and sore throat. I get sick maybe once or twice a year, but when I do, it’s usually a bit more debilitating than it was when I was younger, probably because it happens so infrequently. This one has been particularly humbling because I had to take off from class for the first time in two years, and I could barely run for an entire weeks. I got very lucky with a snow day at work and some days off planned by my employer to focus on my recovery.
As a long-distance marathon runner, I had to take several days off from running. The days I could run, I ran only two miles and was coughing almost the entire time. I didn’t want to lose my rhythm because if I take two days off of running, it will feel like I did not run for months, but my respiratory system definitely was not nearly the same as I usually was. I was not been able to get as much done at all, and there was one day when I slept about 15 hours and just laid in the bed for most of the hours I was awake. I did attend classes on Zoom due to inclement weather, and when I had my camera on, I saw that I was very visibly unwell with my face and eyes red, wearing a heavy winter jacket inside when the heat at home…
