I don’t get very sick very often. Even with my autoimmune disease, I am on medication that helps me function and hopefully allows me a natural lifespan. But recently, a coworker at my day job came in sick, unmasked. Bam. I got sick. Sicker than I have been in years. The LVHN Ugent Care tested me for flu, checked my lungs for pneumonia. Negative. They declared I had a non-specific virus. No kidding. My symptoms were the same as my co-worker’s. It started with a bad headache. The next afternoon, my fever hit 103. Scary. It dropped to 100 the next day, but hung around for four more days. I could barely get out of bed.

Part of the problem is I can no longer take the good over the counter meds, because they are bad for my liver. I don’t need to aggravate my symptoms while sick. The other issue is I had no appetite for days. Thank goodness I still had some paid time off.

The first night, my older son was home. I texted him from bed and asked him to help his brother with learning to heat up pizza on his own. My youngest has always been a little afraid of the oven. But after that, it was on me to make my younger son dinner, even though I couldn’t eat. I would get texts from him, “when is dinner?” UGH. When mommy can get up.

There’s another nasty side affect of birthing three kids. You sneeze, you pee. Guess what happens when you have coughing fits? I felt miserable.

Thankfully the fever finally broke, and I had a snow day to rest. Then it was back to the day job. My coworker graciously apologized for getting me sick. I appreciated that, and I forgave her.

Thankfully, I have a few days off now to catch up on things. I still have a cough, and I still tire easily. I wrote a to-do list for the break. Right in the middle, I wrote, “Pace yourself”. Because I have a tendency when I am behind to try to push to hard to catch up, and then I fall down.

So I am celebrating every small thing I accomplish. I am taking breaks. It will all get done. I am just not going to break myself to do it.