I don’t know why, but yesterday Adam was determined that I had caught his cold. It didn’t matter how many times I told him that my nose was totally unaffected, he just wouldn’t let go of it. In fact by the time I went to bed last night, not only did I feel like death warmed up but I was wound up to the point of almost exploding. This morning, well other than the fact that I have calmed down now, I actually feel worse, yet nothing much has changed. I am reasonably confident now that I do have a chest infection. I do actually feel a lot worse than I did yesterday, that, desire to curl up and never move again is strong. I don’t think this banging headache that I have, has given up for a second since it appeared yesterday. Combine that with the pains that appear all across the back of my lungs, worst in two places, I am generally feeling sorry for myself. My chest is producing more phlegm than yesterday, but it’s still not in huge quantities. All I can do is just keep an eye on it and see what happens as that is the thing that will tell me the fastest if things are getting worse.

It is so easy when you get something small and silly like this to suddenly develop the normal human state, of feeling sorry for ourselves. I never feel that way over any of my illnesses and, to be honest, other than when I have had a really bad flu or pneumonia, feeling sorry for myself, is something I don’t do. Yet here I am displaying to the world exactly what I have observed in others. I understand the wanting to curl up and sleep part, well that’s logic, it’s your body telling you what it needs you to do, so it can heal. But that’s very different from searching for a comfort that will take your ills away. It’s also very different from wanting to be taken care of, something I have never wanted in the past. I was always the carer, the one who ran around nursing the ills of others, yet today I want that arm around me and the reassurance that everything will be OK. If I were to list all the conditions that are bothering me at this very second, my chest infection would be at the bottom, of no consequence what so ever. But it’s taken over mentally as though it is in charge of my very existence and reduced me to a wimp. I don’t have much energy at the best of times, but right now, I seem to have totally none.

I guess that it is the power of those everyday illnesses that makes those around us who don’t actually have a chronic illness, believe we are stoic and strong. That we are fighting so hard to get on with our lives as everyone know how it feels to be ill, but they at two completely different things. If I felt like this every day of my life, I doubt that I would have any life left. Yes, when I am exhausted or fatigued, then I feel something almost the same, but even then, you don’t feel like that every single second of every day. Every day there are spells when you don’t feel so bad, spells where normality isn’t that far away, out of reach, but close enough to boost you. You can be lucky, you have pain, but no you don’t feel destroyed by it, you just feel like the you, you have adapted to be. Bugs and viruses destroy everything at exactly the same time and it’s that that makes them hard to live with. They hit you out of the blue, no time to adapt or prepare, suddenly you are ill with something that is out to get you and it always wins, well, at least for a few days. Add on top of that, chronic illness, and the picture isn’t that rosy at any point, all you can do is hope it will pass sooner rather than later.

I am reasonably sure part of the reason that I feel worse today than I did yesterday, is that whatever this bug is, it is now playing games with not just my COPD, but my PRMS and Fibro as well. I know that I have said it when it comes to chronic conditions that I believe they travel in gangs. that once you have two, you will have more as they can’t resist calling in their friends. I honestly think there is some sort of deal going on with the entire spectrum of illnesses. Almost my entire body is aching, not pain, just that persistent dragging ache. I don’t know how viruses and so on do it, but they all seem to have the art of introducing themselves and then becoming great pals with the chronic conditions it’s just found. I can feel without looking for them, almost all the Fibro points that I have and every area that is normally plagued by my PRMS, now don’t just have pain, they ache too. It’s like the pain sensitivity controls over my entire body has been turned up, never down, just up. I suppose it’s not a shock that coughing is causing problems with my diaphragm spasms, just to add a point of annoyance. Or that I am having pain in my lungs, but I have also found that my balance is badly off today as well. If it has been a cold I would have put that down to sinuses and ear canals being blocked, both are perfectly fine. So I guess it is just another game they have decided to play between them. Why is there not a single bug out there that switches things off?

Today, just like yesterday, I can see that straight after lunch I will be in bed. I slept 3 hours yesterday and was perfectly happy to head back into sleep at my normal time, I have to say that is for now the only acceptable thing I can think of that bugs bring with them, sleep.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 13/06/13 – Prep for Monday

It seems to be one of those constant things in life that time moves faster and faster, half of the way through another year and a growing fear that in a couple of years time, we will have just cleaned up from Christmas and it all has to be done all over again. I remember clearly been told this will happen but no…….