It’s Saturday. I started to lose my voice on Tuesday. I persisted at work with a barely functioning voice on Wednesday. Then I took Thursday and Friday off. The best I could muster was a hoarse, ugly whisper on those days, and that’s if I was really straining.
All of this “free time” (i.e. time sleeping and coughing up half a lung) has also allowed some thinking time. Once upon a time, I got sick quite often. During parts of my marriage, I would get laryngitis once a year. I also got a weird rash on my hands when I got too stressed. When I went to the doctor for it, they thought it was psychosomatic. The rash was literally a result of being stressed out.
I haven’t seen that rash lately, though there have been sporadic times I’ve seen a bump or two. Nothing like I got back then though: dozens of tiny, itchy bumps covering my palms and fingers.
But
After all, this cold is my third of the year (that’s 2019, folks). The others weren’t as bad, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been this sick this often. And while, yes, viruses cause colds, it’s also well known that stress can make us more susceptible to viruses. (The article is older, but newer articles support the same.)
And the symptom of being voiceless… Could that have a deeper meaning? Or well, perhaps it’s not so deep. Maybe it’s just damn obvious.
I’ve never been great at subtlety.
So it seems I’ve still got some soul searching to do. I guess it goes with the journey.
At the very least I need to get my immune system built up. This getting sick crap is for the mosquitoes. (The normal phrase is “for the birds,” but I like birds. I don’t like mosquitoes. Let them get sick instead!)
Probably, I need a little more of the above. While I haven’t been working so much off the clock, I haven’t been feeding my soul during that time either. I need to find that balance that is so easy to lose again.