Trashcan Full of Tissues

I was feeling well enough to go for a short walk around the park on Friday. Lovely to see that the trees are starting to bloom.

My trashcan overflowed with tissues from the cold I caught this week. I made my way through an entire tissue box.

At first, I refused to admit I was sick. I didn’t want to be sick. I had things to do! My annual mammogram was scheduled for Saturday morning and I desperately needed to go to Costco. When Sunday rolled around, I still wasn’t feeling great, but my next door neighbors had started a burn pile, and I had piles of brush that needed to be burned.

Of course, this was something I could do on my own, anytime when it was a “permissible burn day,” which is something you can easily find out by checking our county’s website. Since we’ve had good rain lately, burning has been permitted. I even have a space toward the back of my property where someone had burned before, a circle of rocks and some charred logs. But I was nervous about this, and if my neighbors had a pile going, I could wheelbarrow my brush down to them and take care of it. It took a couple of hours of loading and wheeling, but I was victorious. Sure, I was coughing a bit as I did it, but I wasn’t that sick, right?

Monday morning dawned. I needed to work. One tricky thing about being self-employed is that you don’t get paid sick days. If I don’t work, I don’t earn. I was sure I could work, though, especially if I fortified myself with the magic elixirs of Sudafed and Advil and carried unwrapped cough drops in my massage apron. I had made it to Costco and had worked in the yard just the other day! Surely, it was only a little cold and I wasn’t that sick.

But late Monday morning, as I sat at the kitchen table, drank my hot tea, and tried my best to motivate myself to get ready for work, I finally accepted reality.

I was that sick.

And anyway, nobody wants to be in a small room getting a massage from a massage therapist who is sniffling, coughing, weary, and generally feeling awful.

So I didn’t work Monday.

I also didn’t work Tuesday.

I was scheduled for two appointments Wednesday, but one of my clients canceled (because they were sick), so I only did one, and I ended up being glad for that.

I worked a little Thursday. Wore a mask. Cancelled my blood donation appointment, because one of the first questions they ask you is “Are you feeling healthy and well today?” Not exactly.

On Friday, I had a full schedule. I was feeling better but not all the way. Saturday evening as I write this? I’m still blowing my nose every once in a while, but I’m about back to normal. It feels so nice! Whenever I’m sick, I longingly remember the many days when I’ve been healthy and wonder if I will ever get there again. When I’ve recovered, I vow (for a short time anyway) to give thanks for the days when I wake up and feel fine. It’s so easy to forget how lovely it is to feel well.

I wonder if this cold would have been shorter and less intense if I had listened to my body and cancelled everything over the weekend, stayed in bed and ignored the brush piles. I wonder if I made it harder on myself, which is something I have been known to do in the past. Of course, it’s possible that the cold would have been like this, even if I had started resting as soon as I felt sick. There’s no way to know for sure. Something to think about, though.