I'm on day three of this horrendous sore throat. My doctor thinks I have strep, so I've taken two doses of antibiotics today. It still hurts. I have not had a sore throat this bad in years. As a child, my tonsils were huge, and my mother constantly worried they'd cause me problems. But they didn't - until I became a teenager. I kept getting sore throats and finally, at the ripe old age of 21 (that's old for getting your tonsils out!), I had them taken out. The pain during recovery literally made me cry. My ears and throat hurt so badly that I could barely stand it. But as the human body does, I healed, and life went back to normal.
Over the years, I've still had some sore throat, and have had strep a few times, but nothing like this latest round. When I wake up, it takes me a good two hours to get it calmed down enough to not swallow without crying. I've been eating ice cream as that seems to help, and then feel guilty about it because OH MY GOD I MIGHT GAIN WEIGHT. Ah the brain is just so much fun, isn't it?
Worse, this sore throat comes on the heels of me having a long flare of my chronic illnesses. I feel worthless, depressed, and worn out. I look terrible, I feel terrible, and hate that I'm being a burden on my boyfriend and my daughter.
Those are my thoughts, and as I wrote about earlier, they're wrong because I know I am not being a burden. When they are sick (which is rare for my BF), I take care of them and don't see them as a burden. It's not their fault that they're sick, and it's not mine, either!
I'm still trying to do the day job throughout all of this, and I had to finish the first draft of my class paper. While the paper has been submitted, I now await the inevitable edits I'll have to make for the final.
I haven't been able to exercise, and I know that's a big part of this depression - walking helps me not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.
I'm not excited about Christmas, not excited about the novel, not even excited by the books I'm reading.
Honestly, I don't want to do it anymore, it being all the responsibilities I have. I want to take a sabbatical from life: do nothing on the day job, don't worry about the paper, don't worry about the novel. Just check myself into a hospital/sanitarium and listen to podcasts or read or have someone wheel me around the pond.
I'm sure that once my throat stops being on fire, and I'm able to get on the treadmill, or even get out of the house, I'll feel better.
But it sure is tempting to just say, "I'm done for awhile," and check out of reality for a week or so.
If only.
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Oh man, this brought me such flashbacks. Earlier this year I had the sore throat to end all sore throats. I suspect it's very similar to what you're feeling right now, though mine wasn't strep. It hurt so badly to swallow I did break down and cry for a while. I ended up losing my voice entirely, like couldn't even get a squeak out, and missed two weeks of work. Please just rest and don't try to do anything else. I really hope you recover quickly from this. Hopefully those antibiotics do the trick and knock it out!!! Do not feel badly about being down, because that sounds terrible. Sending you lots of friend-strength!! Rest and sleep!
ReplyDeleteThis is Deb... I have to figure out why it keeps making me anonymous!!!
DeleteThank you so much, Deb! Thankfully the antibiotics are working and it is better today, though my voice is pretty awful! I'm staying put in bed and not going to push myself one bit!
DeleteI still have my tonsils, even though I used to get terrible throat infections. And I used to lose my voice every seasonal change. But I started taking a teaspoon of honey every night before bed, and that's done so much to help. In addition to boosting the immune system and helping with allergies, it also feels comforting.
ReplyDeleteThat is a fantastic idea! I did have some honey lozenges that helped quite a bit.
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