This probably doesn't deserve it's own blog post, but sometime in the future, when I'm having a bad day, I can look at this and be grateful.
At the end of July, I woke up with a sore throat. Throughout the day my whole body hurt, so much that I asked Hyrum to come home early. The next night I couldn't sleep because my chest was so full of mucus. There I was, standing in the dark bathroom at 2 am, with a towel over my head trying to breath in the steam. When I 'woke' up, it hurt to swallow, and both ears felt infected. Within a few days I completely lost my voice. Nothing more than a whisper would come out. For SIX days. My sister called me on the phone, and when I answered, she said, "Is this a bad time? Are your kids sleeping next to you?" Nope, this is just me now. Generally when I get a cold, it's annoying, and hurts bad for a day, maybe 2, but you're always hopeful that you'll wake up just a little better and be whole in less than a week.
Not so with this cold from hell that I just got over. At a week mark, I still had no voice. By two weeks it still hurt to swallow and I had pain in my ears. I stayed up at night googling my symptoms, hoping to find some magic solution or diagnosis besides a common cold. By day 19, I started wondering about tonselitis or strep throat, so I made an appointment to get checked. (Plus, one website said you should see a doctor if your cold symptoms persist after 2 weeks.)
Even though I had my fingers crossed for a bacterial infection so I could get antibiotics, it was viral. And there was nothing the doctor could do about it. However, she did look in my ears and confirm that there was fluid. So I felt justified for all the pain I was in. (Still keeping me up at night.)
I continued using some nasal spray, trying to clear the fluid. And I think now, I'm finally healthy. And August is almost over... and it's been kind of a miserable month. Winter is only a few months away and sure to bring more sickness...
The up side is that my kids weren't that sick. I actually got the cold from them, but they all had it for about 48 hours. Lucky.
Yes! I had this too! My kids each got colds (coughing, runny noses) for like 48 hours, and I lasted until the last kid got it, then I got it, and now (2-1/2 weeks later?) I'm FINALLY feeling better! I still have a lingering cough, but it was the worst. Sore throat for almost the whole time, and the cough and gunky lungs, combined with being pregnant and having other kids to take care of was the pits. I had Doug come home early one day so I could try to sleep (though the coughing caused acid reflux, so that was impossible) and run to the bathroom every 2 minutes since the coughing and pregnancy weren't happy together. Oh, it was the pits. Sorry you had it too. It sounds exactly like what I had. Oh, and I saw a doctor who prescribed me codeine so I could sleep (even though I'm pregnant!) and assured me that it was fine, but then the pharmacist who I went to to fill the prescription told me it's a class C drug during pregnancy and not safe, so I didn't fill it. My ob prescribed me an antibiotic at the tail end, but who knows if it was even bacterial. Blah. Yes, makes me super thankful to be healthy usually too. (Do you think your mom has the same thing? I do - she sounds like I sounded a couple weeks ago.)
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