my week with flu
The Sunday before last I woke up feeling under the weather and by Monday, it had evolved into a whole roulette of flu symptoms that, like lightning, never struck me twice but hit in very quick succession, so that was a fun time. I had the whole array of fatigue/body aches/fever/chills/sweats/sore throat from hell/congestion/nonstop sneezing one after the other for an entire week. I kept reading about flu being on the rise in Singapore, and a couple others around me were sick as well, so I guess I just got unluckily swept up in the wave.
I don’t actually get sick very often—maybe once or twice a year, and usually not to this extent—so really it was a reminder not to take that for granted, that health comes first, and that I cannot do anything if my body is not physically up to it, regardless of the state of my mind (which was frankly not great anyway when flu-fogged).
I’m recovering now, thank goodness, but I’m no longer young enough that I get better just like that when I’ve been flattened for a week. Even if I black out for more than eight hours, I still wake up feeling kinda groggy.
One of the things I missed most when I was sick was being able to exercise. I think teenage me would be shocked to hear nearly-40 me say such a thing, but when you can’t work out, you really appreciate your body’s ability to do so on a regular basis. Movement feels good! Who’d have thought? Anyway, I began slowly easing back into exercising with lighter weights and gentle cardio this week, and again, I am reminded that my capacity is neither static nor linear; what I am capable of today has little relation to what I was capable of the day or the week before. People are changing all the time. (It’s me. I’m people.)